Category: Latest Updates

Liberty Steel, la branche acier du groupe britannique GFG Alliance, annonce un nouveau conseil d’administration, dont fera partie l’ancien patron d’ArcelorMittal, Roland Junck, pour contenir la crise et préparer la reprise.

«Il s’agit d’une étape importante, alors que nous achevons la consolidation des activités sidérurgiques de GFG Alliance dans Liberty Steel Group. Je suis fier de l’équipe de direction que nous avons réunie, qui comprend certains des noms les plus expérimentés de l’industrie mondiale des métaux. L’objectif immédiat du conseil d’administration de Liberty Steel Group sera de gérer l’impact du Covid-19 sur nos employés, nos opérations et nos clients, et de veiller à ce que le groupe soit bien préparé à la reprise quand elle arrivera», explique le CEO du groupe, Sanjeev Gupta, dans un communiqué.

Le chef de l’exploitation de Liberty Steel Group sera Arnaud de Weert, qui, jusqu’à récemment, était directeur général d’Alvance Aluminium. Le directeur financier du groupe demeure V Ashok, qui a rejoint le groupe l’an dernier.

Deux présidents régionaux superviseront les opérations internationales: la supervision de l’Australie et des États-Unis sera assurée par Daksesh Patel, qui poursuivra son rôle parallèle en tant que directeur exécutif et chef de la direction d’InfraBuild en Australie; Roland Junck, ancien directeur général d’Arcelor, puis d’ArcelorMittal pendant quelques mois au moment de la fusion avec Mittal, supervisera Liberty Steel au Royaume-Uni et en Europe continentale.

«Je suis ravi que Dak Patel ait accepté d’assumer des responsabilités supplémentaires au-delà de son rôle de directeur exécutif et de directeur général d’InfraBuild. Et nous sommes heureux d’accueillir Roland Junck, un véritable poids lourd de la sidérurgie dont les connaissances et l’expérience seront inestimables. Avec nos administrateurs non exécutifs indépendants nouvellement nommés, Ray Horsburgh et Paul Struijk, nous avons un conseil d’administration exceptionnellement talentueux qui contribuera à propulser notre entreprise vers l’avant.»

Le conseil d’administration se compose comme suit:

– Sanjeev Gupta, président exécutif et CEO de Liberty Steel Group

– V Ashok, directeur financier

– Arnaud de Weert, directeur général délégué

– Roland Junck, président-directeur général par intérim, Liberty Steel Europe & UK

– Daksesh Patel, président, Liberty Steel Australia & USA

– Ray Horsburgh, administrateur indépendant non exécutif

– Paul Struijk, administrateur indépendant non exécutif

Dans le cadre de la nouvelle structure de gestion, Greg Jones est nommé CEO de Liberty Steel USA.

Le huitième groupe mondial hors Chine

Le groupe Liberty Steel consolidé sera incorporé à Singapour et aura un exercice clos le 31 mars 2020 pour garantir que son premier jeu de comptes consolidés reflète la performance normalisée de la crise Covid-19.

Le nouveau groupe est désormais le huitième plus grand groupe sidérurgique hors de Chine, employant 30.000 personnes et opérant au Royaume-Uni, en Europe, aux États-Unis et en Australie.

Le 19 février, M. Gupta avait confirmé un investissement de 100 millions d’euros pour les usines de Liège et de Dudelange, rachetées à ArcelorMittal pour que cette dernière puisse acquérir l’italienne Ilva . «Après un examen stratégique de 100 jours, GFG Alliance avait annoncé dans un communiqué son intention de transformer Liberty Liège-Dudelange en l’un des principaux fournisseurs européens de produits en acier revêtu et de démarrer son parcours vers la neutralité carbone. Le programme d’investissement de 100 millions d’euros comprend des plans de mise à niveau pour améliorer la qualité, les performances et le volume des produits en acier galvanisé produits dans ses trois usines.» 

Un investissement qui avait rassuré les syndicats, inquiets pour l’avenir des salariés du site.

Source: Paperjam

The Italian prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has extended the country’s lockdown until 3 May. The steel sector is gradually resuming shipping, sales activity and production as companies are being authorised to work with the necessary hygienic precautions specified by regional authorities, Kallanish learns from market participants.

Most wire rod, beam, merchant bar and rebar producers will be open this week and will be producing and shipping last month’s orders. Distributors will also be open to ship and receive material. Sales activity however is practically non-existent and there are no new prices for long products as mills are quoting pre-lockdown March prices. Despite the restart, sales are not seen resuming this week. Purchasing groups have seen their own sales collapse and have had no turnover, while the companies which are part of the purchasing groups are dealing with liquidity issues, Kallanish hears.

Merchant bar remains at €50-60/tonne ($54.7-65.6/t) base ex-works on average, or €75/t delivered. Including an average €420/t for size extras, transaction prices for domestic material remain at €470-480/t ex-works. Rebar prices are at €400-410/t ex-works while the first category of beams is at €550/t ex-works including €380-385/t size extras, sources say.

This month, mills are buying scrap at €20-25/t less than in March, Kallanish notes.

The Spanish steel sector will have a clearer picture of the impact of Covid-19 on its activity in May. This view was expressed to Spanish media by Andres Barceló, general director of the Spanish steelmakers’ association Unesid, in an interview monitored by Kallanish.

“The industry has seen both its production and raw material supplies affected,” says Barceló. “Most large steel companies in the country have had to face higher costs while output and exports have been halted for a period of nearly two weeks. The impact of these factors will be able to be evaluated with more clarity next month. It is now difficult to carry out such an assessment. The most important thing is, and continues to be, overcoming the health crisis. Once it is over, we will start with our analysis,” the Unesid president adds.

Spanish steel companies are determined to comply with all health and security measures implemented during the current epidemic. The sector has returned to work under very high security conditions throughout the supply chain, Barceló confirms.

Italian car output dipped again year-on-year in February. This also follows a fall in December and January, says local carmakers’ association Associazione Nazionale Filiera Industria Automobilistica (Anfia) in a report monitored by Kallanish.

According to Anfia data, passenger car production in Italy fell in February by -3% year-on-year and by -5% in the first two months of the year. In January passenger car production in Italy was 32,062 units and in February it was 52,204 units.

According to ISTAT (Instituto Nazionale di Statistica) data, total automotive production including heavy and industrial transport fell by -1% in February compared to February 2019. This is the 20th consecutive monthly fall. In January and February, the fall was -1.5% year-on-year.

Italian car output had dipped on-year in 2019. Total automotive production including heavy and industrial transport fell by -9.6% last year.

Turkish automotive production fell sharply in March, amid the COVID-19 outbreak which especially hit export demand, S&P Global Platts observed from the latest Turkish Automotive Manufacturers’ Association (OSD) data published Monday.

As most major Turkish automakers have paused their output as of the end of March, due to disruptions in procurement, sales and delivery related to the virus outbreak, Turkey’s auto output is expected to hit bottom in April.

According to the OSD, total automotive production in Turkey decreased by 22% on year in March to 103,350 units, as exports fell by 30% to 83,771 units.

Turkish automotive production in the first three months of 2020 totaled 341,136 units, down 6% from last year, while total export sales declined 14% to 276,348 units.

After falling to the lowest level of the last 16 years in 2019, automotive sales in Turkey showed a notable recovery in the first two months of this year, amid lower interest rates. However, as the COVID-19 outbreak negatively impacted demand, automobile sales in Turkey fell significantly in the last week of March, amid sharp exchange rate fluctuations.

The stoppages by major auto producers as well as some other industry sectors in Turkey have also notably pulled down the nation’s steel demand in general. Some Turkish steel producers have already announced output cuts, while some have paused their output.

— Cenk Can

Turkey’s largest steel pipe producer, Borusan Mannesmann, which paused output at some of its mills in Turkey as of April 3, following the stoppage at its Vobarno plant in Italy due to the coronavirus outbreak, has restarted output at its Turkish mills as of April 13, S&P Global Platts learned Monday.

“We have restarted output at our Halkali works in Istanbul and Gemlik spiral-welded pipe works in Bursa with minumum workers, with all necessary protection measures taken,” the company said Monday, adding that the stoppage at its Vobarno plant in Italy is extended till May 3 in line with the Italian government’s decision to stop production activites due to COVID-19 outbreak.

The company is continuing pipe production at its US mill, which is classified as a mill with strategic importance within the scope of the US law, with minimal workers in a rotating protocol that takes into account all the necessary precautions against the COVID-19 outbreak.

BM’s Turkish mill capacity is 750,000 mt/year of longitudinal welded pipe and 300,000 mt/year of spiral welded pipe. Capacity for cold-drawn special pipe at its Vobarno plant in Italy is 28,000 mt/year.

The company’s US electric-resistance welded pipe mill in Baytown, Texas, has a capacity of 300,000 mt/year.

— Cenk Can

The increase in Turkish mills’ rebar prices over the last ten days supported by higher scrap pricing and some Turkish mills’ stoppages seems to have eased recently amid slow demand, especially in export markets, amid ongoing uncertainties arising from COVID-19 outbreak.

After falling to a four-year low at $207/mt CFR on April 1, scrap prices showed a notable gain in the first ten days of April, as reported. S&P Global Platts assessed Turkish imports of premium heavy melting scrap 1/2 (80:20) at $251/mt CFR last Thursday.

Turkey’s scrap suppliers were still pushing for higher prices Monday – to as much as $260/mt CFR – amid availability issues, trade sources said.

Some Turkish mill stoppages due to adverse market conditions also created supply issues in some regions of Turkey, as most construction sites were still operating in Turkey.

Low export demand and cash flow problems arising from exchange rate fluctuations have begun to limit trade activites in the Turkish rebar market, but mills have started the week generally with flat prices on a dollar basis.

The Turkish lira lost another roughly 1% in value against the US dollar Monday amid expanding COVID-19 outbreak and started to trade in the range of Lira 6.78-6.79/$1 at 5 pm in Turkey.

Major Turkish long steel producer Icdas, based in the Marmara region, has been offering lira-denominated 12-32 mm rebar at Lira 3,320/mt ex-works Biga, including 18% value-added tax (VAT) Monday, which equated to $414/mt ex-works, excluding VAT, relatively flat week on week.

Bastug Metalurji, based in the Osmaniye region of southern Turkey, which closed its order book last Wednesday, reopened it Monday and started to offer 12-32 mm rebar at Lira 3,320/mt ex-works, the company informed Platts.

The company’s 10 mm and 8 mm domestic rebar list prices were at Lira 3,350/mt and Lira 3,380/mt, respectively.

Stockists’ 12-32 mm rebar offer prices to the domestic market remained in the range of Lira 3,260-3,280/mt ex-stock Monday, roughly flat week on week.

— Cenk Can

Following a silent period since mid-March amid an uncertain environment arising from the globally expanding COVID-19 outbreak, Turkish buyers, whose stocks fell to very low levels, have made some hot-rolled coil import bookings, especially from Russia last week, as import prices slumped, informed sources told S&P Global Platts Monday.

Turkish buyers booked around 100,000 mt of May rolling HRC particularly from the CIS region in the range of $385-$390/mt CFR over the last ten days, sources said.

Import offers from other suppliers were around $400-$405/mt CFR last week but didn’t attract any buying interest in Turkey, as domestic mills’ HRC offers for sizeable bookings to some major pipe makers fell as low as $410-$415/mt ex-works last week. Some mills’ export offers fell below $400/mt FOB.

Although the latest low-priced import bookings have put further pressure on Turkish mills’ HRC quotations amid low demand, Turkish mills have been generally offering HRC to the domestic market around at $430/mt ex-works and above this week, amid the notable rise seen in imported scrap prices, which reached as high as $250/mt CFR in Turkish mills’ latest bookings at the end of last week, amid some availability issues.

“There are even some attempts for $260/mt CFR for imported scrap this week,” a trade source told Platts Monday.

Cash flow problems arising from sharp exchange rate fluctuations have continued to limit trade activites in the Turkish market, as Turkish lira lost another roughly 1% in value against the US dollar on the first trading day of the week.

HRC imports reach 1.28 million mt in 3 months

Before the virus outbreak silenced demand in Turkey, Turkish HRC imports rose sharply year on year and hit roughly 1.28 within three months, according to the latest Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK) data sent to S&P Global Platts.

After reaching as high as 450,000 mt in December and 444,000 mt in the first month of 2020, Turkish buyers’ imports of HRC reached as high as 387,000 mt in February, higher than the 332,000 mt imported in the same month the previous year.

Russia remained Turkey’s top HRC supplier in February at 130,000 mt, while imports from Ukraine totaled 93,200 mt in that month, around double year on year.

Turkey’s HRC imports from South Korea rose more than five-fold year on year to 36,800 mt in February, while imports from one of Turkey’s largest European HRC suppliers, France, totaled 33,500 mt in that month, up 73% year on year.

Other HRC suppliers to Turkey in February were; Brazil (24,700 mt), Japan (20,000 mt) Romania (18,500 mt) and Italy (11,000 mt), the latest TUIK data showed.

— Cenk Can

Some Italian steel producers will resume activity later this week and have been authorised by Italian authorities to ship material and restart commercial activities, sources tell Kallanish.

Long producers Beltrame, Pittini, Ori Martin, Acciaierie Venete are reopening while ArcelorMittal Italia has received permission from Italian authorities to restart sales of its production from the Taranto steelworks. Some tube makers such as re-roller Marcegaglia will resume re-rolling and commercial activities, also by Friday.

On the stainless steel side, Cogne has confirmed its production restart this week together with the earlier-announced Acciai Speciali Terni AST resumption (see Kallanish 7 April).

However, distributors and most end-users remain closed and there is some concern regarding the potential of clients placing new orders considering the current problem of liquidity. At the end of March distributors’ clients were mostly unable to pay while distributors paid off all their outstanding invoices, sources tell Kallanish.

Sources believe that the market will need a couple of weeks to resume normal operations. The first steps towards a full reopening of the steel supply chain are expected to be taken as from Tuesday 14 April, according to Alessandro Banzato, head of Federacciai, in an interview during a webinar this week.

Numerous Members of the European Parliament (MEP) have written to the European Commissioner for Trade, Phil Hogan, in support of the reduction in EU safeguard quotas. This comes on the back of the fall in steel demand linked with the Covid-19 outbreak.

The letter, seen by Kallanish, was redacted by Italian MEP Massimiliano Salini and signed by almost 80 colleagues of various nationalities. It goes in the same direction indicated by Eurofer last week, calling for the safeguard quotas to be reduced significantly for the remainder of 2020.

“During the last month, the steel market outlook has changed fundamentally due to Covid-19,” the letter says. “Steel demand has fallen by over 50% in different sectors, EU steel consumption fell sharply and is expected to remain significantly down for the rest of the year. We believe that the current Tariff Rate Quotas in the Safeguard are obsolete, no longer reflecting the nowadays European market.”

The letter mentions the fact a new review of the safeguard system was already in place, as per the initial schedule. The MEPs therefore ask the trade commissioner to reconsider the volumes of quotas, to set them below traditional import levels. “In fact, we believe that to prevent this destructive scenario, the Commission should consider changing the Safeguard for the rest of 2020, to reflect the decline in real steel consumption,” the letter adds.

“Considering the global character of this crisis, the risk of deflection of imports towards the EU market is higher than never before. In addition, we must take into account the eventuality of any future increase of infections, which could lead to a re-imposition of the current measures, with devastating effects to European companies. We strongly believe that, allowing imports in large volumes, while recovering from the current situation, could cause additional devastating damages to the steel industry, especially considering its fragile situation,” the MEPs conclude.