ArcelorMittal confirms to Kallanish it will carry out further planned production stoppages at the company’s Asturias mills until year-end due to the extremely difficult market situation in Europe.6
The Asturias mills are facing a situation of “emergency”, said the steelmaker’s Asturias cluster chief executive Oswaldo Suárez during a meeting with unions last week. He was referring to the increasing social and productivity costs – excluding operating costs – of the Asturias plants.
“We had an internal meeting with the unions to inform them about the results achieved by the company in Asturias during the first half of 2019,” confirmed ArcelorMittal without giving further details on stoppages. “The general director of the cluster of Asturias, Oswaldo Suárez, informed unions about the current situation of the plants and advanced new production stops due to market reasons.”
During the meeting, Suárez commented that the steelmaker’s long product line is currently recording significant losses due to a fall in orders and excess imports into the European Union market. The executive estimated that ArcelorMittal facilities in Asurias will end 2019 registering losses and that the outlook for their performance is also not promising for next year.
Last week ArcelorMittal already stopped the plate line in Asturias for two days, due to market reasons.
