Category: Latest Updates

Tata Steel Europe hat mit seinem Europäischen Betriebsrat weitere Einzelheiten der Vorschläge für ein Transformationsprogramm zur langfristigen Sicherung seiner Zukunft erörtert. Ziel ist es, ein finanzstarkes und nachhaltiges europäisches Unternehmen aufzubauen, das in der Lage ist, die erforderlichen Investitionen zu tätigen, um die Innovation und den Weg des Unternehmens zur klimaneutralen Stahlerzeugung zu beschleunigen.

Während der Sitzung, die den offiziellen Beginn des Konsultationsprozesses der Arbeitnehmer mit dem Europäischen Betriebsrat (EBR) markierte, teilte Tata Steel Europe erste Vorschläge für sein Transformationsprogramm mit.

Als Teil des umfassenden Vorschlagspakets beabsichtigt Tata Steel Europe, die Beschäftigungskosten zu senken. Es wird erwartet, dass dies zu einem geschätzten Rückgang der Mitarbeiterzahl um bis zu 3.000 führen wird, wovon etwa zwei Drittel auf Management- und Bürofunktionen entfallen werden. Bis zu 1.600 werden in den Niederlanden, 1.000 in Großbritannien und 350 in anderen Ländern der Welt erwartet.

Henrik Adam, CEO von Tata Steel in Europa, sagte: ” Unsere Strategie ist es, ein starkes und stabiles europäisches Unternehmen aufzubauen, das in der Lage ist, erhebliche Investitionen zu tätigen, die für eine erfolgreiche Zukunft erforderlich sind.”

Tata Steel hat sich mit dem EBR auf einen Forward-Prozess geeinigt und wird sich in den kommenden Wochen erneut treffen, um weitere Details zu besprechen. Sie wird ihre Mitarbeiter und andere Interessengruppen während des Prozesses weiterhin auf dem Laufenden halten.

Quelle und Foto: Tata Steel Europe

ArcelorMittal has reached a labor agreement at its Gijon steelworks in Spain plant which will avert a five-day strike, a company spokesman told S&P Global Monday.

The company agreed to backtrack on 44 job cuts, around one fifth of the plant’s employees, which it had intended to carry out amid a general regional cutback in production.

As a result, a five-day strike called by the workers’ council has been called off, the spokesman said.

The step back comes amid a series of partial strikes at the company’s two plants in Asturias related to collective contracts. There are also further strikes planned by auxiliary workers due at the end of this week, according to local paper El Comercio.

Since May, AM has reduced production at the 5 million mt/year Gijon site by around 800,000 mt/year.

Stalprofil increased sales 30% on-year in the third quarter to 84,000 tonnes thanks to growth in hot rolled coil and pipe deliveries for the requirement of the firm’s gas infrastructure segment.

The Stalprofil subsidiary responsible for carrying out insulated pipe deliveries to the gas sector, Izostal, currently has a PLN 470 million ($120.3m) order-book which it will realise over the next 15 months. Around 30% of the order-book comprises work for pipeline operator Gaz-System.

Stalprofil reported a -3% on-year drop in consolidated revenue in Q3 to PLN 410.5 million ($105.1m), while net profit slumped -64% to PLN 3.8m. The revenue decline was driven by a -28% slump in infrastructure segment sales, while sales of steel products and services soared 29%. The infrastructure segment slump was not due to a drop in orders, but rather due to Gaz-System’s delivery schedule, the distributor says.

The steel segment’s lower margins were the result of a weaker market and gradual erosion of steel prices, as well as a shift to lower-margin HRC and gas-transmission pipe sales.

In the nine months through September revenue thus dropped -2% on-year to PLN 1.07 billion, while net profit fell -36% to PLN 16.2m. Steel product deliveries rose by 653t to 173,904t, while steel structures sales fell 644t to 1,663t.

The European steel industry has struggled this year with reduced consumption and steel prices, which have been pressured by imports despite safeguard measures. These have been coupled with stubbornly high iron ore and coking coal prices, Stalprofil observes in a report seen by Kallanish.

In order to mitigate the market impact on its performance, Stalprofil is targeting increased steel structures exports to markets such as Germany and Austria where quality demands are higher than in Poland. Moreover, the firm expects to complete by year-end the expansion of its machine construction line. These products are more profitable than building construction, Stalprofil observes.

ArcelorMittal has rolled out a new sustainability program across Europe to secure so-called ‘ResponsibleSteel’ site certification for its flat products plants, the steel producer said Tuesday.

A 12-month program will enable each of ArcelorMittal’s sites to prove their production processes meet rigorous standards across a range of social, environmental and governance criteria.

To be awarded ResponsibleSteel certification, sites are audited by a third party with an independent Certification Committee making the final certification decision. The standard is based on 12 principles mainly aimed at improving climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, water stewardship and biodiversity, human rights and labor rights and business integrity.

“Responsible production techniques and high ethical and business standards have become increasingly important to our customers and consumers. It is at the heart of how we do business, giving our customers the reassurance that we meet their sustainability expectations by meeting carbon, environmental and social standards at every stage of productions,” Geert Van Poelvoorde, CEO ArcelorMittal Europe – Flat Products, said.

The first sites to go under scrutiny will be in Belgium, Germany, Spain and France, with others to follow.

After the initial phase, further ArcelorMittal sites around the world will be part of the program. In 2020, ResponsibleSteel will launch a standard for the certification of steel products, which will include stringent requirements for raw materials supply chain.

Steel’s end-users in the transport, automotive, infrastructure, packaging, construction, energy and white goods sectors have an ever greater expectation that the materials they use are responsibly sourced and produced.

For example, major steel buyer Toyota said it was targeting zero carbon emission from the vehicle life cycle and its plants by 2050, the same as for Volkswagen. Carlsberg wants zero carbon at its breweries. Overall, steel buyers are increasingly asking that their raw materials are obtained by audited sources to ensure a sustainable supply chain.

Northern France steelmaker Ascoval has received a significant order from the British Steel plant in Hayange, Moselle, Kallanish learns from trade union sources.

The supply of 140,000 tonnes of blooms and squared bars over 4 years starting in September 2020 is intended for the production of rails for the French national railway system SNCF. Following a difficult period, Ascoval is now developing sales and production volumes. Next year, including this new order, output should exceed 300,000t, Kallanish understands.

Ascoval is investing €16 million ($17.6m) in a new production line at its site in Saint Saulve supplied by Italian equipment maker Danieli. The new line should be up and running by August 2020. Saint Saulve was acquired by the investment fund Greybull which will invest €47 million into the plant in Saint Saulve. The same amount is also being invested by the French authorities, including the state and a number of regions, (see Kallanish 26 July).

Ascoval can produce between 250,000-600,000 tonnes/year of continuous cast bars depending on the product mix. The mill is equipped with one electric arc furnace.

Lusosider (Brazilian steelmaker CSN’s Portuguese unit), has seen its shipments reduced so far in 2019 compared with 2018. Meanwhile the attempt to sell the unit previously announced by the group is not believed to being progressing.

According to CSN’s official quarterly results, Lusosider shipped 248,000 tonnes of products during the first seven months of 2019. This volume is around -8% below the level witnessed during the same period of 2018. Overall the company shipped over 350,000t of products in 2018 versus more than 360,000t in 2017. The mill has the capacity to produce up to 500,000t of processed CRC and HDG using HRC as raw material.

CSN announced the intention to sell its European assets, including Lusosider, in 2018. Since then some discussions regarding the sale of the German longs’ unit of Stahlwerk Thüringen have been reported by the group, while news of any progress in the Lusosider spin-off has remained elusive.

A source close to the matter explains to Kallanish that a sale of the Portuguese unit “… does not seem to be on the cards.” The unit continues to operate, serving the local market mainly, but it is not considered to be attractive for investors at the moment, he adds.

Spanish automotive production rose year-on-year for the fourth consecutive month, Kallanish learns from data produced by the automotive association Asociación Nacional de Fabricantes de Automóviles y Camiones (Anfac).

“The Spanish automotive sector registered it`s best monthly figures for October since 2007 when only 9,000 more vehicles were produced. This growth was mainly due to the recovery in the European market. The EU countries as a whole have increased their car registrations by 8.7% in October,” Anfac says.

Spain’s automotive production totalled 270.070 units in October or 9.6% more compared to the same period of 2018. During the first ten months this year, the country’s output amounted to 2,397,278 vehicles. This volume was just -0.8% less than in January-October of 2018.

Spanish vehicle exports were 222,583 units during October, an increase of 7.8% compared to the same month last year. Ten-month shipments abroad fell slightly by -0.9% y-o-y to 1,954,563 vehicles, Anfac data show.

Long products mill ArcelorMittal Duisburg has commissioned its new wire coil storage facility at the Ruhrort site this week, Kallanish learns from the company. ArcelorMittal has invested €5.8 million ($6.4m) in order to further strengthen the Ruhrort location for the future, it says.

With a total area of around 12,500 square metres and a height of 17 metres, the new space can accommodate around 10,000 tonnes of coiled wire coils for storage before dispatch. In the course of the new construction, the surrounding infrastructure was also adapted to the requirements. 4,500m² of roads and access areas were built, and a shipping office erected.

The warehouse also has energy-efficient lighting with more than 200 LED lights, which is much more energy-efficient than the former storage location at ArcelorMittal’s other location in Duisburg in Hochfeld. “With the hall in Ruhrort, we now have all the steps of our value chain in one place: from the production of the billets to the rolling and finishing of our high-quality wire products to the storage before shipment,” says ArcelorMittal Duisburg ceo Paul Tetteroo.

He adds that the site used mainly products from within the group to construct the new facility. Most girders for the walls and ceilings came from Differdange, Luxembourg. The steel fibres for the floor came from the ArcelorMittal plant in Syców, Poland. The group’s construction plant in Brehna near Leipzig supplied roof and facade sheets for the warehouse. A total of 800 tonnes of steel were used in the construction.

“In terms of activity, I think it has been a good year, but this last part of 2019 has been very complicated”, said Fernando Espada, president of the European steel distributors association EUROMETAL, talking about the situation in the EU distribution sector.

Interviewed by SteelOrbis on the sidelines of the EUROMETAL SSC Regional Meeting Southern Europe held lately in Milan, Mr. Espada pointed out that in Germany in particular the current year has been more negative than elsewhere, mainly due to the weakness of the automotive sector.

“But looking at car registrations in the EU-28 in the first ten months of the year, the figure is only down by about one percent compared to the same period in 2018,” he commented, adding, “Therefore, I think that the weakness of the sector has more to do with inventory management along the supply chain and with exports by Germany to third countries.”

In other European countries, such as France and Spain, the car sector has not showed such a negative performance, he noted. However, he continued, “In Spain, where an even more chaotic picture has emerged from the latest elections, political uncertainty is having a negative impact on investments and decision-making processes.”

Speaking of Italy and the Ilva crisis in particular, the EUROMETAL president defined the Taranto-based steelmaker as “a very important actor which has always determined prices in Europe” and has always been a significant player in terms of price competitiveness, being able to offer a good quality product.

He defined the Italian market as the most dynamic in Europe. “It has the fastest and most responsive players who are open to any option,” he explained. “I have always said that earthquakes have their epicenter in Italy and that their expanding wave arrives in Spain and then reaches Germany via France,” he added.

According to Espada, a possible closure of Ilva would be “a very great loss”. However, he went to say he is “sure that the Italian industry is prepared to react quickly to whatever is happening.” Problems could occur more in the short term, because “in the long term, Ilva’s production capacity could be replaced by imports from other countries,” Espada continued, adding that “once again the Italian industry will show how flexible and quick it is to react to changes.”

During the EUROMETAL Meeting, representatives of European steel service centers claimed to be prepared to face a number of potential scenarios, and said they were confident they would be able to react and adapt quickly to any changes on the supply side. Many agreed that importing coils might eventually remain the sole viable solution to cope with supply shortages in the EU.

Reflecting the EUROMETAL president’s view of the resilience of the steel distribution system in Italy, they pointed out that, for example, shipments by Italian service centers dropped by only 2.7 percent year on year in the first nine months of 2019.

Stefano Gennari

The European Commission today initiated a formal investigation into circumvention of anti-dumping duties on Chinese hot-dip galvanised (HDG) coil.

The commission said the duties, imposed in February last year, have been circumvented by the addition of thin oil coatings, or increasing content of carbon or other elements, or amending the coating. The existing duty ranges from 17.2pc to 27.9pc, depending on the mill.

Chinese imports of HDG registered 1.18mn t over the first nine months of this year, up by 16pc from 1mn t over the same period of 2018 — this is despite the imposition of the definitive steel safeguard, which has supposedly reduced the availability of Chinese material subject to anti-dumping measures, categorised under the 4A code.

Availability of 4B material, destined for the automotive sector and not subject to duties, has been protected by the commission. But China obliterated its 527,164t quota for July 2019-June 2020 on the day it opened. Import statistics show 750,676t of Chinese HDG cleared customs in July, up by 583pc from the same period last year, as traders looked to pass customs before the quota level was breached.

The commission’s review of its safeguard, implemented on 1 October, actually saw some Taric codes listed under 4B moved into the 4A portion of the safeguard to ensure availability for automakers. But this opened a theoretical loophole whereby Chinese material that was previously dumped could clear customs under the other countries portion of the 4A safeguard. Nevertheless, over 500,000t of the October-December other countries quota remains available, suggesting that nobody has exploited this to any real degree.

By Colin Richardson