Thyssenkrupp Materials Services appoints Heather Wijdekop as CEO of Business Unit Processing
thyssenkrupp Materials Services has appointed Heather Wijdekop as the new CEO of the Business Unit Processing, effective July 1, 2025. She will also lead the Operating Unit Processing North America, succeeding Norbert Goertz, who will continue as interim CFO of Business Unit Solutions and oversee Corporate Functions at the North America headquarters in Michigan.
Dr. Wijdekop brings over 20 years of international industry experience, including leadership roles at Tata Steel Europe and Corus Group. Most recently, she served as Director Commercial at Tata Steel IJmuiden, contributing significantly to sales growth and portfolio expansion.
North America remains a strategic growth region for thyssenkrupp, with 70% of its investment over the past five years focused in the region. The Business Unit Processing operates in both Europe and North America, providing customized flat-rolled metal processing and supply chain management, with a strong focus on the automotive sector.
CEO Ilse Henne welcomed Dr. Wijdekop to the leadership team, highlighting her customer focus, global experience, and alignment with the company’s materials-as-a-service strategy.
Stockholding: German steel sales rise 5.6% in March as stocks fall
Steel product sales in the German distribution and stockholding system rose 5.6% year over year to 863,963 mt in March on restocking, as inventories fell 4.7% to 1,886,182 mt , data from German steel stockholders’ association BDS showed April 24.
Sales of long steel products fell to 250,858 mt in March, from 254,763 mt in the same month last year, while flat sales increased to 533,267 mt from 496,755 mt. Other steel products climbed to 79,838 mt from 65,948 mt.
Stocks of long steel products fell last month to 659,410 mt from 646,239 mt reached a year ago, while inventories of steel flat products decreased to 1,189,091 mt from 1,288,941 mt. Other steel products dropped to 37,681 mt from 44,353 mt.
In March Germany produced 3.1 million mt of steel products, falling 11.7% year over year, the third consecutive month of double-digit decline for the country’s steel industry. Germany’s blast furnace steel producers registered the biggest drop in output, down 14.8% year over year to 2.1 million mt. Steel producers using electric arc furnaces produced 3.5% less crude steel in March at 1.1 million mt.
Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, assessed hot-rolled coil in Northwest Europe at Eur640/mt ($728/mt) base ex-works Ruhr March 31, up from Eur560/mt at the start of the year, with mills cutting production to sustain higher prices.
Platts assessed HRC in Northwest Europe at Eur655/mt EXW Ruhr April 23, up Eur5 day over day, and in Southern Europe at Eur625/mt EXW Italy, stable over the day.
Steel, automotive tariffs cause manufacturing uncertainty
Uncertainty remains over the impact recent US tariffs will have on the steel and automotive sectors, Stephen Phipson, chief executive of Make UK, said during a Business and Trade Committee hearing this week.
“We’re waiting for the full effects,” Phipson noted, highlighting three main areas of concern, with possible direct and indirect impacts on demand and jobs.
“There is a case to be made that some areas, they can probably stand a 25% tariff in terms of the consumer prices, but others certainly can’t. So there would be a direct effect there,” he said.
“There is the indirect effect, particularly around the EU; a lot of our … manufacturers are in the supply chain to EU businesses, which are then exporting final products to the US. It depends on where the EU negotiations end up as to what the effects will be in terms of volumes on UK manufacturing; so, that’s a grave concern,” he added.
For some steel products, he expects buyers to pay the 25% tariff as they cannot currently be sourced domestically in the US.
“With the 25% on steel, which [are] not normal steel products. These are advanced products. These are more specialty steel, specialty components. Now, in a lot of cases, the customers can’t do without those. They’re the single source for those items. So, the consumer will actually end up paying the 25%, but the question … is, does that curtail demand in the process of doing it whilst people re-source, if those tariffs persist for any length of time?”
Stability is also a concern, Kallanish learns from the session.
“We don’t know from one day to the next, whether [US President Donald] Trump’s going to carry on, whether he’s going to suspend, whether he’s going to change; it makes planning your business and your investments extremely challenging,” Phipson said.
“It’s … very difficult to know exactly what the demand reduction will be as a result of tariffs,” he added.
He also highlighted the work manufacturers were doing to mitigate the impact.
“Other manufacturers are … putting in temporary contingency plans at the moment, hoping that in the next month or two we can get some sense, and they don’t have to do the next level, which will be, if you see a demand reduction, scaling back factory capacity.”
He told the committee the manufacturing sector will “absolutely have to” lay off staff if a tariff deal is not done with the US by summer.
“Many of [the] large companies [have] put contingencies in place … [which] gives them maybe three months of gap. So that gives you an order of time scales before there would be a reduction in capacity planned,” Phipson noted.
“For SMEs, they’re living hand to mouth. They want to know day to day whether adding 10% to their product is going to reduce the amount of volume they’re shipping to the United States. And so for them, it’s a much more direct impact; so the larger ones can put this off for a few months, but the smaller ones are going to see it now,” he concluded.
Carrie Bone UK
ArcelorMittal to cut 600 jobs in France amid escalating steel crisis in Europe
Europe’s largest steelmaker announced plans to eliminate approximately 600 jobs at ArcelorMittal France North sites, notably Dunkirk, Florange, Basse-Indre, Mardyck, Mouzon, Desvres and Montataire.
The number of affected jobs, however, is not final and might change.
“At this stage though, it is too early to quantify the number of people who might be affected,” ArcelorMittal said.
The measures are necessary “to adapt [the company’s] activity to the new market context and ensure its future competitiveness,” ArcelorMittal said.
The company deemed market conditions in the European steel market as a major driver behind the decision, Fastmarkets understands.
“As the European steel industry is facing a crisis marked by a 20% drop in demand over five years and a sharp rise in imports, which now account for 30% of the market, ArcelorMittal France North must continuously review its efficiency and competitiveness,” the statement reads.
Affected facilities
ArcelorMittal did not announce any immediate plans to cut production at affected sites when contacted by Fastmarkets on April 24.
There are three BFs at the Dunkirk site with combined capacity for about 6.9 million tonnes per year of pig iron. Only BFs 3 and 4 have been operational recently, however. BF2, with capacity for 1.4 million tpy of pig iron, has been idled since June 2022, Fastmarkets understands. The site can produce 4.6 million tpy of hot-rolled coil.
The Florange site can produce up to 2.8 million tonnes of flat steel products a year, including hot-rolled, cold-rolled, galvanized coil and tinplate.
The Madryk site is equipped with pickling and cold-rolling mill and two galvanizing lines. Estimated yearly output at the site is over 3 million tonnes of flat steel products.
The Desvers site can produce around 400,000 tonnes of galvanized coil per year.
The Basse-Indre site produces tinned and electrolytic chromium steel coils and sheets.
The Montataire site has three galvanizing lines and one organic coating line, with a total capacity of over 1 million tonnes of coated coil per year.
And Mouzon site has two lines to produce corrosion resistant flat steel products.
European steel sector struggles
The European steel sector has been facing rising production costs, increased pressure from low-cost imports from Asia and the ongoing deterioration of the steel demand-supply balance in Europe, sources told Fastmarkets.
ArcelorMittal is not the only one European steel producer who has been planning job cuts recently.
In April 2025, Tata Steel Netherlands announced plans to eliminate 1,600 jobs, Fastmarkets reported.
In November 2024, Germany’s largest steelmaker, Thyssenkrupp, announced plans to reduce its steel output and cut around 11,000 jobs to adapt to the fundamental changes taking place across the European steel market.
The EU steel industry reduced its capacity by 9 million tonnes per year in 2024, while also announcing 18,000 job cuts, according to European steel association Eurofer.
Crude steel production across Europe amounted to 136.30 million tonnes in 2022, down from 152.60 million tonnes in 2021, according to data from worldsteel. The decline was due to massive output cuts that were implemented by European mills in the third and fourth quarters of 2022 amid deteriorating demand and falling steel prices.
Steel output rebounded slightly to 129.5 million tonnes in 2024, compared with 126.3 million tonnes in 2023, according to worldsteel. But the total volume was still below the 159.4 million tonnes recorded pre-Covid in 2019.
Apparent steel consumption in the EU amounted to 127 million tonnes in 2024, down by 2.3% from 130 million tonnes in 2023 and lower than during the 2020 pandemic year, when it stood at 129 million tonnes, data from the European steel association Eurofer shows.
Real steel consumption shrunk by 3.8% in 2024 to around 132.7 million tonnes, from around 138 million tonnes in 2023.
While steel consumption in the EU decreased, the share of steel imports in the European market has been rising, crowding out local supply, sources noted.
Carbon steel imports to the EU in 2024 totaled 26.36 million tonnes, up by 6.4% compared with 24.78 million tonnes in 2023, Eurofer data showed.
In March this year, the European Commission presented a Steel and Metals Action Plan to support the struggling industry, but it remains to be seen how the plan will be implemented and what results it will bring.
One of the plan’s pillars is tailoring trade policies to protect struggling European market from unfair imports.
On April 1, the EU Commission introduced new, tighter, steel safeguard measures to support the domestic steel sector.
And on April 7 the EU imposed anti-dumping duties on imports of hot-rolled coil from Egypt, Vietnam and Japan.
Europe’s steel sector remains at the heart of many regional economies, with approximately 500 production sites across 22 EU member states.
According to EU data, the European steel sector contributes around €80 billion to the EU’s gross domestic product (GDP) and supports more than 2.5 million jobs.
