Day: 20 February 2020

One of Turkey’s largest steelmakers, Colakoglu, which placed an order with Primetals Technologies last October to upgrade an existing VD (vacuum degassing) plant in its Dilovasi meltshop to a VOD (vacuum oxygen decarburization) plant is targeting a May startup, S&P Global Platts learned from Ugur Dalbeler, CEO of Colakoglu, Wednesday.

“We are targeting to produce ultra low carbon steel grades at the plant,” Dalbeler said, adding that by producing interstitial-free grades they should be able to raise their market share notably in the automotive industry, which they are currently serving.

“Our general target is to raise the unit value of our steel production by producing maximum steel grades of hot-rolled coil,” he noted.

With a heat size of 295 metric tons, the VOD plant will be the largest worldwide. Colakoglu will be able to produce special steels, like IF grades, ULC grades or stainless steels at the plant. This will help Colakoglu broaden its product range and enter additional markets.

Colakoglu is one of Turkey’s major longs and flats producers with bar output capacity of 1 million mt/year and HRC production capacity of 4.5 million mt/year.

— Cenk Can

Swiss steel trading company Ludwig Stahl is leaving business and will be closed on 31 March, Kallanish learns from managing director Reinhard Kopf.

Together with Peter and Roswitha Orlandi, Kopf has run the company, which he and three others acquired with equal stakes from founder Bernd Ludwig, since 1996. Specialising in heavy plate and strip products, the company was mainly active in Europe until 2008. In the wake of the global financial crisis and digitalisation, it redirected is business to third country imports. It has traditionally sold 30-40,000 tonnes/year of steel.

“Unfortunately, framework conditions in trading have changed massively since 2016,” the company says in a farewell note, citing global overproduction as well as antidumping measures. “The EU’s safeguard measures have become all but incalculable, changing business to a first-come-first-served game by which you cannot work decently,” Kopf tells Kallanish.

The company’s main source used to be China, which, along with Switzerland’s high costs made it too difficult to continue, he says. Kopf himself will now be operating under the name of ReKo Stahl GmbH from Koblach in Austria.

Liberty Steel plans to invest €2 billion ($2.16 billion) into its Continental Europe business after completing a 100-day strategic review following its acquisition of the plants last summer.

The group plans to “…create a new champion in European steel with a clear focus on carbon neutrality by 2030,” says Sanjeev Gupta, Executive Chairman of Liberty Steel parent GFG Alliance.

Its Galati steelworks in Romania will see a $1 billion ten-year investment programme that includes major upgrades to its casters, rolling mills and coating lines, which will enhance the unit’s product offering. Also planned is the installation of an electric arc furnace to reduce emissions and the steelworks’ dependency on imported natural resources.

The investment aims to increase Galati’s share in the Romanian domestic market and raise production to 4 million tonnes/year of steel over time. Galati will also construct a captive lime plant to further enhance competitiveness.

Since acquitting Galati, Liberty has carried out improvements including the starting of a new cutting line, work on the installation of a new hot stove and environmental projects, the firm says.

Liberty’s Ostrava steelworks in Czech Republic will undergo a $750 million ten-year investment programme to install by 2024 new hybrid steel-making technology – a first in Europe, the steel group claims. It will also carry out a major modernisation of its rolling mills.

“The new hybrid steel-making technology will allow the business to utilise higher volumes of local steel scrap to reduce the reliance on imported natural resources, lower CO2 emissions and enable greater flexibility by switching or blending blast furnace and electric arc furnace steelmaking,” Liberty says in a statement sent to Kallanish.

In the next five years the Ostrava plant, in collaboration with the government, also plans to install a high voltage power line to support further electrification of processes to reduce emissions.

Liberty also plans a $100m investment to improve the quality, performance and output of galvanised steel products at its Liege-Dudelange works, which will improve competitiveness.

Moreover, at its Magona plant it will spend $100m to upgrade and extend the organic coated and galvanised lines to restore the unit’s long-term profitability.

Finally, at the Skopje plant it will invest $25m to increase and improve organic coated capacity by upgrading existing lines and broadening its product and service portfolio.