ArcelorMittal to close Krakow pipe mill
ArcelorMittal Tubular Products plans to cease production at its Krakow welded pipe mill by end-March 2024 due to the weak market situation and negative economic outlook, Kallanish notes.
The firm is in talks with trade unions to find solutions for the workers affected by the closure of the plant, which produces up to 250,000 tonnes/year of pipe.
Earlier this month, ArcelorMittal Poland (AMP) said it will idle its Krakow coke plant due mainly to weak demand, but also the narrowed differential between coke and coking coal prices (see Kallanish passim). This comes after the firm idled its Sosnowiec wire rod mill from 18-26 November, also amid weak demand.
In 2020, AMP closed its Krakow hot-end for good after idling it in late 2019 on account of reduced demand and a large volume of imports into the EU. The Krakow plant has since been sourcing slab feedstock from AMP’s flagship Dabrowa Gornicza steelworks to continue hot and cold rolled coil production.
Adam Smith Poland
ArcelorMittal appoints new German coil mills’ chief
Thomas Bünger will succeed Reiner Blaschek as chief executive of the ArcelorMittal Bremen and Eisenhüttenstadt plants on 1 February 2024, Kallanish learns from the group.
He will be responsible for the Germany cluster at ArcelorMittal Europe – Flat Products, following Blaschek’s appointment as ceo for the entire European flat steel business (see Kallanish passim). Blaschek will also take over the role of chairman of the management board of ArcelorMittal Germany Holding at a later date.
Bünger was most recently ceo of London-based tin mining development company First Tin. Prior to this, he held several important positions at Aurubis in Hamburg, where he was responsible for operations and technology. Bünger studied at the Mining Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia, and at the Institute for Non-Ferrous Metallurgy and High-Purity Materials at the TU Bergakademie Freiberg.
Christian Koehl Germany
European HRC producers continue pushing up prices
Fastmarkets calculated its daily steel HRC index, domestic, exw Northern Europe at €670.88 ($733.18) per tonne on Friday, down by €1.62 per tonne from €672.50 per tonne the previous day.
The index was up by €4.21 per tonne week on week and by €48.38 per tonne month on month.
Integrated steelmakers in Europe raised HRC offers to €700-720 per tonne ex-works for February delivery, sources said.
Buyer sources estimated tradable levels at €660-680 per tonne ex-works for HRC in the region. This is in line with transactions for January-delivery material.
Despite cautious buying, most sources agreed that there was still room for price rises in the region due to reduced supply.
“In the new round of sales, we see [HRC] prices climbing to €700 [per tonne ex-works], but I’m not sure about higher values; prices for processed HRC downstream are not really rising,” a trading source told Fastmarkets.
“[The] market feels insecure [because] idled furnaces and rolling lines will come back in to production in the first quarter [of 2024] some people say,” a distributor in the Benelux area said.
“Therefore [there are] no speculations; buyers only send in contracts for what they need and to cover January’s demand. The fact is that contracts these days are booked at levels of €660-680 [per tonne ex-works],” a steel service center source in the region said.
Fastmarkets calculated its daily steel HRC index, domestic, exw Italy at €660 per tonne on Friday, stable day on day.
The Italy index was up by €1.12 per tonne week on week and by €56.25 per tonne month on month.
Trading in Italy has slowed following the price increase announcement from local mills at the end of November.
New offers for February delivery were heard at €700-720 per tonne delivered, but no trades have been reported at that level.
This compares with offers and transactions for January-delivery coil in the nation at €680 per tonne delivered (€660-665 per tonne ex-works).
In the secondary market, prices for HR sheet continued to be reported at €750 per tonne CPT, largely flat week on week.
“It is still hard to consolidate higher prices for HR sheet downstream, so new HRC price increases are unrealistic,” an Italian trader said.
HRC offers from Vietnam, South Korea and Japan were at €620-650 per tonne CFR for February shipments, sources told Fastmarkets.
Offers of January-shipment HRC from Turkey were heard at €670-680 per tonne CFR, including anti-dumping duties.
Published by: Julia Bolotova
Eurofer decries EU delay on Russian steel sanctions
Prolonged delays in enforcing EU sanctions on Russian steel semis contributes to unfair competition and would serve to empower President Vladimir Putin’s military actions in Ukraine, the European Steel Association (Eurofer) said on Friday.
Eurofer urges the EU Council to reject exemption requests from some member states aiming to protect the interests of a few steel rerollers profiting from Russian steel imports. The association emphasizes that the import of cheap Russian steel contributes to Russia’s military capabilities and conflicts with the objectives of EU sanctions, Kallanish notes.
Any additional exemptions for Russian steel imports must be firmly rejected by EU member states, as weakening the existing sanctions against Russia would be not only counterproductive but also a significant historical mistake, accoring to Axel Eggert, director general of Eurofer.
“The opportunistic interest of a handful of steel processing enterprises in the EU is undermining the overall objective of EU sanctions against Russia, where steel plays a strategic role not only in the overall Russian economy but directly in the Russian military machine engaged in the unlawful war against Ukraine. The EU member states should not perpetuate such a perverse system by approving another exemption, having already accepted a two-year delay in banning the import of Russian semifinished steel products into the EU,” Eggert said.
Failure to enforce steel sanctions against Russian semifinished steel leads to unfair competition and creates an imbalanced landscape within the EU’s domestic steel market, Eurofer contends.
The European integrated steel industry, performing its complete production process within Europe, is dedicated to optimising industrial, economic, environmental and social value creation within the EU. This stands in contrast to certain European rerollers who rely on leveraging cost benefits obtained from low-cost imports sourced from Russia. Additionally, integrated steel producers in the EU have swiftly complied with EU sanctions by halting the import of Russian coal.
The import quota for Russian slab, allowed by the EU’s eight sanctions package and totalling 3.74 million tonnes, is to expire in October 2024. Russian billet was assigned a quota of 85,260t in October-December 2023 and 48,720t in January-March 2024. Additionally, steel products processed in third countries using steel originating from Russia are not permitted in Europe as of 30 September 2023.
At the same time, EU importers did not exhaust the first-year quota for Russia-origin slab imports permitted by the bloc’s eighth sanctions package effective October 2022. EU imports of this product reached 2.89mt between October 2022 and September 2023, versus the quota of 3.748mt.
The EU’s 12th sanctions package against Russia is under discussion and may propose new restrictions on Russian pig iron, copper wire, aluminium wire, foil, tube and pipe, alongside other commodities, according to reports.
The Czech Republic is advocating for an extended exemption period for importing steel from Russian steelmaker NLMK.
Elina Virchenko UAE
Thyssenkrupp reassigns responsibilities of executive board
Thyssenkrupp AG will add Volkmar Dinstuhl, Ilse Henne and Jens Schulte as new members of the executive board, Kallanish hears from the company.
Jens Schulte, currently cfo of Schott AG, will succeed Klaus Keysberg as cfo of thyssenkrupp AG. Keysberg’s wish to leave the company at the end of his current contract was announced in early September. The change in office is expected to take place in spring.
Volkmar Dinstuhl, most recently ceo of thyssenkrupp Multi Tracks and responsible for M&A projects, and Ilse Henne, board member at tk Materials Services, will join the board of tk AG effective 1 January. In addition to the cross-divisional functions of strategy, human resources and finance, their appointments will result in a new focus of the board on operational management concentrating on performance and portfolio development.
The new schedule of responsibilities assigns the business segments to the following members from January 2024: Automotive Technology to Volkmar Dinstuhl, Decarbon Technologies and Steel Europe to Miguel López, Marine Systems to Oliver Burkhard and Materials Services to Ilse Henne.
Christian Koehl Germany
CBAM implementation confuses traders
The introduction of the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) from 1 October has been a model case “of how not to do it,” says Alexander M. Julius of trading company Macrometal.
Speaking at the opening presentation of EUROMETAL’s Steel Trade Day in Düsseldorf, Julius recalled that “as of 1 October, customs did not have the system ready and could not tell what they needed from us … and we did not really get help from Brussels either,” Kallanish heard him say at the event. He pointed at Germany as “the best example for the mess,” as Berlin has not yet decided which departments are actually in charge of CBAM.
Another speaker that day, Simon Göss of Berlin-based company Carboneer, tried to give a fuller picture of the CBAM and how it works but could not answer all questions. An example from Julius: “If you work with more than one agent in the port of entry, will you need to have more than one declarant?”
On the positive side, he told of meetings with mills in the Middle East, where he “was amazed how well-prepared they were, about their efforts to measure emissions in detail.” And he expressed optimism that the mills with keen interest in the European market will be doing their homework in this regard.
But still, it means a lot of extra work on the receiving end for the trader. “It is a nightmare,” said Maruan El Daghma at the closing panel session. “But we will have to do the work and see our customers through it.”
Christian Koehl Germany