Day: 30 July 2020

Italian steelmakers’ association Federacciai president Alessandro Banzato says Italian crude steel output is recovering slightly, calling the June decline of only -13% on-year “…encouraging.” This comes after the sharp drop of over -42% in April and over -16% in May.

During a webinar organised by Siderweb, Banzato added that the former Ilva steelmaker, now ArcelorMittal Italia, has been running at minimum capacity.

“If this gradual recovery was to consolidate in the coming months, we could forecast an end of year production fall of -15%, in line with forecasts for Europe,” Banzato commented. “My hope is that we do better before the decisive recovery forecast for 2021.” While scrap values are forecast to broadly remain stable next month in Italy, he also said German price movements in August will have an impact on other European countries.

Meanwhile, UBI Banca foresees a recovery between 2021-2022 with a gradual and progressive improvement particularly for those companies and sectors that focus on exports, Kallanish understands. However, 2020 will be particularly negative for Italy’s GDP and companies in the steel sector, UBI Banca concludes.

Global cold rolled stainless steel production is estimated to have fallen by -12% on-year in the first half of 2020, with every country experiencing a decline in output.

Average utilisation rate is estimated to have decreased from 76% to 63%, with a resulting increase of 2.8 million tonnes in overcapacity. Due to the stainless consumption drop in all major regions resulting from Covid-19 and demand weakness, coupled with new capacity in China and Indonesia, global utilisation rates should remain in this range in 2020, says French stainless producer Aperam.

Utilisation is expected to remain relatively low until at least 2022, assuming China does not address its overcapacity issue and there is no recovery in global demand. European producers are expected to remain under pressure as imports remain at a high level in a contracting market. Moreover, further capacity is coming online in 2020, in particular from Indonesia, Aperam says.

All Aperam’s non-essential and discretionary expenses have been frozen while capital expenditures have been reviewed down to reach about €100 million ($117m) in 2020. Half of this amount is for the new cold rolling and annealing and pickling lines in Genk, Kallanish notes.

Aperam started well into the year 2020 with a first quarter marked by a seasonal volume recovery and the exhaustion of some import quotas increasing demand for domestically-produced material. Prices remained flat. Towards the end of Q1 the company started to face significant Covid-19-related effects which continued over Q2.

Ebitda was €70m in Q1 and €49m in Q2. In H1 it was €119m versus €176m in H1 2019. Total sales in H1 stood at €1,867m compared to €2,268m in H1 2019. Steel shipments stood at 814,000t compared to 966,000t in H1 2019. Average selling prices were at €2,231/tonne compared to €2,272/t in the same period the previous year.

Sunningwell International Polska is set to acquire Huta Czestochowa (HCz) after its tender bid for the Polish plate mill was accepted by the Czestochowa district court, an official at the investment firm tells Kallanish.

The winning bid of PLN 220 million ($58.5m) was made by Sunningwell Steel Polska, a holding set up by Sunningwell in 2019 to operate steel assets acquired in Poland, Romania and potentially other Central and Eastern European countries.

Sunningwell, which has been leasing insolvent HCz since last September, was the only company to make a valid bid in the tender to sell the plate mill. Another bid came in from Liberty Steel-owned Corween Investments, which also participated in last year’s sales process for HCz. However, this bid came in after the deadline and did not contain the required deposit, resulting in it being rejected by the court. The Sunningwell official says it was Liberty’s intention to prevent the acquisition of HCz.

Electric arc furnace-based HCz has a 1.2 million tonnes/year capacity of heavy plate.

Sunningwell also previously acquired Romania-based Otelu Rosu Mill and Laminorul Braila Mill through its Laminorul Danube Metallurgical Enterprise subsidiary. It was on the verge of acquiring Combinatul de Oteluri Speciale (COS) Targoviste earlier this year but the transaction was delayed by an objection to the deal from one of Targoviste’s creditors (see Kallanish passim).

Laminorul Danube then agreed to lease Targoviste for one year starting from 1 April or until the creditor’s appeal had been resolved. Then the Covid-19 pandemic struck and forced Sunningwell to invoke force majeure in the lease contract and suspend its execution. The Polish firm intends to complete the lease agreement once Covid-19 complications ease, the official confirms.

The investment company Sunningwell International Polska made a formal offer to buy the Polish heavy plate mill Huta Czestochowa, which was accepted by the mill’s administrator and approved by the local court, Marek Frydrych, Sunningwell’s president, said July 29.

Frydrych said his bid was the only one received by Huta Czestochowa before the deadline on July 27. Sunningwell also paid a Zloty 22 million ($5.9 million) deposit required for the offer to be valid.

Frydrych added that on July 28, the company Corween Investment, part of the Liberty Group, also submitted an offer. The company requested for its offer to be accepted despite missing the deadline and for the deposit payment period to be extended until August 3. The local court rejected both requests.

According to local media reports, a representative of Corween Investment made a pledge to offer Zloty 2 million ($0.53 million) over the initial asking price set at Zloty 220 million ($58.7 million).

A representative of Liberty Group said the company had no comment regarding its interest in the Polish mill.
— Wojtek Laskowski

En el siguiente enlace pueden acceder a la edición de Julio de nuestra revista: Infoacero Julio 2020

A continuación destacamos algunos de sus contenidos:

1. Opinión – D. Antonio Ibáñez – Junta Directiva de  la UAHE. 
2. Evolución del Índice de Precios de Productos Siderúrgicos – UAHE.
3. Ayudas Covid: programas TIC Cámaras, Ciberseguridad e Industria 4.0.
4. Webinar Eurometal:  “Después del Covid 19- Estrategias de Supervivencia para la Distribución de Acero”
5. Próximos Eventos: Jornada UAHE– 19 de Noviembre,  31ª Bienal de Máquina Herramienta–  24-25 de Noviembre