Mannesmann Stainless Tubes Italia, located in Costa Volpino in Italy, is shutting down production this week, Kallanish learns from the parent group Salzgitter.
Group cfo, Burkhard Becker, announced this at a press conference on the measures that the group is taking to combat coronavirus. With a production line for cold pilgering and cold drawing, the Costa Volpino mill specialises in tube with smaller outer diameters. Its products are used for instrumentation tubing, heat exchanger piping, boiler tube and tube for umbilical lines.
The Mannesmann business unit ended 2019 with a loss, but the company expects a turnaround this year. Order intake fell to €1.38 billion ($1.52 billion) in 2019, down from €1.46 billion, on shipments that dropped to 546,000 tonnes, from 625,000t in 2018. The pre-tax loss (Ebit) was €27 million. This development was essentially attributable to the notable downturn in demand for precision tubes from both the automotive and manufacturing industries. Moreover, the lack of volumes from the US market in the medium-sized line pipe segment was not fully offset by projects in other markets, Salzgitter says.
In contrast, the stainless steel tube group achieved a notable increase in order intake, and was the only subsegment that kept its shipments steady y-o-y. The group’s expectations of returning to profit in 2020 are partly based on a positive outlook, especially for stainless tube. It remains unclear as to how the Italian, and other potential production cuts will affect that outlook.