Day: 30 April 2020

En el siguiente enlace pueden acceder a la edición de Abril de nuestra revista: Infoacero

A continuación destacamos algunos de sus contenidos:

1. Opinión – D. Jose Sánchez –Junta Directiva de  la UAHE. 
2. Evolución del Índice de Precios de Productos Siderúrgicos – UAHE.
3. Ayudas y Subvenciones: ayudas al teletrabajo.
4. Sector Siderúrgico: Declaración sobre la situación del sector- World Steel Association
5. Colaboración ASCEM: “Nueva Normalidad con Covid”- D. Jordi Romañá – Presidente ASCEM

According to documents from the Anyang Municipal Government in Henan, 11 steel companies in the Chinese city will be consolidated into four in 2020, with the proportion of special steel reaching more than 30%. Shagang Group’s Anyang Yongxing Steel and the Anyang government held talks this week on company integration, Kallanish notes.

Of the 11 steel companies in Anyang, there are 6 integrated plants. These are Anyang Iron & Steel, Shagang Yongxing, Fengbao Iron & Steel, Yaxin Iron & Steel, Xinpu Iron & Steel, and Huixin Iron & Steel. Independent ironmaking companies are Bosheng Steel, Xinyuan Steel and Lin Steel. The only electric arc furnace steelmaker is Boxin Steel and Linzhou Hexin Casting Industry uses electric furnaces to produce pig iron. The main finished products from the city are high-strength wire rod for construction, high-quality steel for machinery, pipe, hot-rolled coil and cold-rolled sheet.

The local government is negotiating an integration plan for these companies. Anyang expects the resulting four steelmakers will have only blast furnaces over 1,200 cubic-metre in volume, converters over 120-tonne and electric arc furnaces over 100-t by 2025.

Eleven steelmakers in Anyang produced 14.69 million tonnes of iron, 14.86mt of crude steel and 15.09mt of finished steel in 2019, up by 5%, 3.7% and 0.6% year-on-year.

Uncertainty remains regarding the nickel supply and demand balance, says French miner Eramet in its first-quarter financial report monitored by Kallanish. The spread of Covid-19 is currently reflected by reduced demand and supply of nickel with contrasts in the scale of the reductions. Some ore and metal producing countries’ activities have been adversely affected.

Due to the downturn in the automotive sector and the health crisis in Asia, global stainless steel production, which is the main end-market for nickel, contracted sharply versus Q1 2019 by -12.1% quarter-on-quarter. This change was observed in both China which contracted by -6.0% and the rest of the world, -18.8%, specifically in Indonesia that saw a -9.8% decline. Demand for primary nickel was down -13.5% but primary nickel production increased in Q1 compared with last year by 2.9%, propelled by a 15.2% y-o-y growth in nickel pig iron production driven by Indonesia in the context of the ban effective since 1 January.

The nickel supply/demand balance is now in surplus resulting in an increase in stocks at the London Metal Exchange LME and Shanghai Futures Exchange SHFE at end-March 2020. Stocks totalled more than 250,000 tonnes, or 35% higher than at the end of 2019 representing approximately 10 weeks’ consumption.

The average LME price was $5.8/lb in Q1 2020, up 2.7% on prices in Q1 2019 but down -17.2% versus Q4 2019, the miner says.

In New Caledonia, the implementation of Société le Nickel’s (SLN) new business model remained successful in the first quarter. Mining production delivered a record first-quarter performance, ending at 918,000 wet metric tons, up by 5%.

ArcelorMittal has temporarily idled a number of blast furnaces across Spain, Italy and France since March due to the impact of the coronavirus outbreak. Now sources among trade unions are indicating that a swift reopening of these furnaces is not to be expected and further output reductions could be imminent in Italy.

In Italy the company halted blast furnace number 2 in Taranto in mid-March, whilst keeping numbers 1 and 4 running at a rate of some 8,000 tonnes/day of pig iron. This represented 50% of the run rate registered before the virus. This week local trade unions said in a press release that production levels are being reduced further to 7,000 t/day of pig iron and that BF2 is not being prepared for restart. This is despite the fact that Italy is easing its lockdown as from next week.

In Spain ArcelorMittal is discussing a new temporary layoff scheme with the unions (see related article). The first indications point towards one blast furnace at the mill in Gijon remaining idled in the coming months. The group also controls an EAF plant in Spain in Sestao for the production of flat products and this is also set to remain idled.

In the South of France ArcelorMittal idled one blast furnace at Fos-sur-Mer at the end of March, with a second expected to be idled by June, as confirmed by the company. The plant is going to maintain a minimum level of activity in order to be able to swiftly resume output when demand picks up, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region president Renaud Muselier said last week.

Spain, Italy and France have been the countries most hit by the coronavirus outbreak since beginning of March. Their economies are expected to suffer more this year compared to those of other European countries further north, Kallanish notes.