Liberty to invest EUR 40 million/year in Romanian mill

Liberty Steel Group will invest EUR 200 million ($221 million) in its Romanian mill over the next five years on maintenance and to grow production and sales, the company’s spokesman told S&P Global Platts Thursday.

Liberty Steel Group’s plan for the Galati steelworks it integrated in July is to grow production volumes and modernize the downstream mills to improve product quality and range. The company will disclose more details in a couple of months once it completes a 100-day review of the mill’s operation, it told Platts.

Apart from injecting the funds, Liberty hopes to achieve the target by giving Galati’s management greater flexibility and autonomy to implement their strategy and to compete in geographies that they have previously been excluded from, according to the spokesman.

“Galati is a major part of our future plans. It is an efficient operation with a highly skilled management and workforce and a competitive cost structure which we will develop,” he said.

Speaking of the short term, despite persisting challenges for European steelmakers and their opaque business prospects, he said there are no current plans to reduce production at Galati.

— Ekaterina Bouckley