Day: 1 April 2021

British Steel President Xijun Cao will assume the additional role of CEO in early April, replacing Ron Deelen who stepped down at the end of March, although he will continue to work closely with the business.

“I’m honored to be leading the next stage of British Steel’s transformation and look forward to helping my colleagues build on their achievements during the last 12 months,” Xijun Cao stated.

In March last year China’s Jingye Group bought British Steel pledging a GBP 1.2 billion ($1.53 billion) investment to modernize the mill. The steelmaker is the second largest UK steel producer with a crude steel capacity of about 3 million mt/year. The company makes more than 1,450 specifications of long steel products including wire rod, sections, special profiles and rail. The headquarters are at the integrated steelworks in Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire, where there are four blast furnaces, two of which are currently operative.

Recently the company stated that its investing GBP 100 million this year to improve manufacturing and environmental performance. The company with this fresh investment will help finance a new billet caster, a scrap pre-heating facility, cranes and a new environmental emission control system.

Since the acquisition British Steel went back in black and launched new products, introduced 24-7 operations at its Teesside and Skinningrove mills and resumed operational control of Immingham Bulk Terminal.

— Annalisa Villa

French steel exports to non-EU countries increased on-year in December 2020 after declining in the previous months, Kallanish learns from new data released by national steel association Fédération Française de l’Acier (FFA). Steel shipments however decreased significantly in 2020 compared to 2019.

French exports of flat and long steel to countries outside the EU28 went up by 15.5% year-on-year in December to 134,000 tonnes. Flats exports increased 19.6% to 128,000t, compared to 107,000t in December 2019. Longs exports however declined 33.3% to 6,000t, compared to 9,000t a year earlier, the association reveals.

In 2020 French long and flat product exports to non-EU countries decreased on-year by 20% to 124,000 t/month. Exports of flats fell 16.5% to 111,000 t/m, while longs exports plummeted 40.9% to 13,000 t/m, the association concludes.

In February French crude steel output was down 8.8% on-year to 1.12 million tonnes.

Natalia Capra France

Swiss Steel has selected cloud-based platform Metalshub for its raw material procurement activities, Kallanish hears from the maker of special bar qualities.

Metalshub will be used for purchasing a significant proportion of raw materials and will be integrated with the existing ERP system of Swiss Steel’s four European business units, Ascometal, Deutsche Edelstahlwerke, Ugitech and Steeltec.

The steelmaking group says it is in the process of driving forward the digitalisation of its processes and activities by implementing a digital procurement solution. “While efficiency and compliance are key drivers for introducing digital procurement solutions, Swiss Steel is also supporting the development of more liquid and transparent raw material markets,” says vice president corporate purchasing Gerd Oehm. “Metalshub is enabling us to become more efficient while creating a liquid spot market for our required raw materials.”

Düsseldorf-based Metalshub has more than 1,100 companies registered on its digital platform. It recently won the Saarland mills Saarstahl and Dillinger as major clients (see Kallanish 16 February).

Christian Koehl Germany