Day: 20 October 2020

Heinz Jörg Fuhrmann will step down as chief executive of Salzgitter at the end of June 2021, to be succeeded by Vattenfall manager Gunnar Groebler.

Fuhrmann will have reached the age of 65 in 2021, and will therefore be retiring upon expiry of his employment contract on 30 June, Kallanish learns from Salzgitter.

In a note labelled “…disclosure of insider information”, the company announces its supervisory board appointed Groebler over the weekend. He is currently head of Vattenfall’s business area for wind energy. Groebler joined Vattenfall in 1999 and has been essential in making the Swedish power company a leader in renewable energy production.

A strategy of “…solidity and innovation, along with social and economic responsibility” pushed by Fuhrmann at Salzgitter will be continued, says supervisory board chairman Heinz Gerhard Wente. “Especially for this reason, I am delighted that Mr. Groebler has been gained as his successor. He holds a great deal of expertise and experience in important aspects of the key future topics decisive for Salzgitter AG,” Wente says.

Italian producers’ association Federacciai has welcomed the start of further anti-dumping proceedings into imports of stainless cold rolled products from India and Indonesia.

In a note sent to Kallanish, it urges the EU to fight unfair commercial practice by foreign producers. This comes after Italian steel trade association Assofermet expressed concern regarding the proceedings and said that new duties would lead to substantial market distortion (see Kallanish 15 October).

“The European market is a free market where local players already operate in a highly competitive context while having to face environmental and energy efficiency restrictions that do not exist in other parts of the world; for this reason this market has to be protected from the imports of those companies that operate in foreign countries without the respect of the same rules,” says Federacciai president Alessandro Banzato.

India and Indonesia were responsible for 20% of imports of stainless re-rolled flat products into the EU and 15% of Italian imports in 2019. Should the investigation lead to the imposition of duties, the market would remain competitive and open to imports from other countries. Last year, the above material was also imported from Taiwan, South Korea, South Africa, Vietnam, Malaysia, Turkey and other countries, Federacciai concludes.

The European Commission has started an expiry review to determine whether to extend existing anti-dumping duties on Chinese wire rod imports.

The duties were first imposed in 2009 and then extended in 2015 for five years. Now the commission will review the market again to decide whether to confirm the measure for a further period of five years. A final decision will be taken by October 2021. During the revision process existing measures will remain in place, Kallanish notes.

“The applicant (Eurofer) alleges the likelihood of recurrence of injury caused by imports from China. In this respect the applicant has provided sufficient evidence that, should measures be allowed to lapse, the current import level of the product under review from the country concerned to the Union is likely to increase,” the Commission says.

“This is due to the existence of unused capacity and the potential of the manufacturing facilities of the exporting producers in China; the attractiveness of the Union market; and trade defence measures against imports of the product under review in force or in the process of being enforced in traditional markets other than the EU (inter alia the USA, Indonesia, India, Mexico, Australia),” the Commission adds.

Any recurrence of substantial imports at dumped prices from the country concerned – likely if measures lapse – would likely lead to a recurrence of injury to EU industry, the petitioner claims.

Turkey’s major flats and longs steelmaker Colakoglu Metalurji has started production of special grades of stainless sheet, in line with the company’s target of focusing more on value-added steel production, S&P Global Platts learned from the company’s CEO, Ugur Dalbeler.

The company has produced the first 304 and 304L stainless grades in Turkey saying it has achieved the biggest casting tonnage globally for these grades as of October. Colakoglu, however didn’t provide further details.

Colakoglu, which placed an order with Primetals Technologies in October last year to upgrade an existing VD (vacuum degassing) plant in its Dilovasi meltshop to a VOD (vacuum oxygen decarburization) plant started production at the plant as of the second quarter, as S&P Global Platts has reported.

With a heat size of 295 metric tons, the VOD plant is the largest worldwide. Colakoglu can produce special steels like IF grades, ULC grades and stainless steels at the plant. This is helping Colakoglu broaden its product range and enter additional markets.

Colakoglu has bar output capacity of 1 million mt/year and HRC production capacity of 4.5 million mt/year.

— Cenk Can