Following the “steel dialogue” hosted by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz earlier in November, national steel federation WV Stahl called another meeting last week, aiming to raise support for medium-sized steelmakers operating electric arc furnaces.
“EAF mills are the backbone of the circular economy, and the key driver of the decarbonisation of heavy industries,” WV Stahl president Gunnar Groebler declared at the meeting. Like most presidents over the years, Groebler is a representative of one of the larger listed mill groups, Salzgitter AG, which, however, is also an active operator of an EAF mill, in Peine.
EAF mills account for 30% of steel production in Germany, and together employ 32,000 staff. Groebler noted that EAF mills have been particularly hurt by power costs that are not competitive internationally.
Among its requests, WV has asked policymakers to provide an industrial electricity price of €30-60 ($35-69) per megawatt hour, including all associated costs. The figure echoes the request made earlier when WV Stahl criticised the government’s draft for an industrial power price (see Kallanish 19 November).
The EAF summit also asked for safeguarding domestic scrap supply, and an expansion of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) to imports of steel-based products.
In a reaction statement, stainless steel trader Gerber called the summit “a declaration of war on the downstream”. Gerber dismisses several statistics cited by WV Stahl to illustrate an aggravation over the years. “The self-inflicted problems of the steel producers … are being hidden under a dangerous propaganda machinery of half-truths … designed solely for the benefit of the large mills,” Gerber writes.
Christian Koehl Germany
