Marcegaglia buys Liberty’s UK tube business

Marcegaglia’s UK division has acquired Liberty Steel’s Oldbury-based Precision Tubes assets in the West Midlands, the Italian pipemaker confirms to Kallanish.

Prior to the purchasing deal, Marcegaglia operated Liberty’s facilities under a licence agreement. “During the two-year assessment, Marcegaglia UK has used the assets to contribute to its existing business, which has aided the expansion of the company’s footprint in both the UK and international markets.”

Under the purchase agreement, all employees will transfer from Liberty Precision Tubes Limited to the Italian pipemaker’s UK division.

The sites of Hub le Bas and Accles & Pollock, part of the Precision Tube business, will continue to trade as normal.

In 2015, Liberty House acquired the Caparo UK business which included Caparo Tubular Solutions sites across the West Midlands (see Kallanish passim).

Natalia Capra France

French, Belgian scrap prices tumble

French and Belgian domestic scrap prices are down €100/tonne ($104/t) in new May contracts. Similar falls of between €70-100/t are being seen in southern and Eastern European countries, Kallanish notes.

While availability of automotive grades has improved in France, demand is strong for cheaper demolition grades. French and Belgian prices of the mixed E8 grade are reaching €490-500/t delivered. E1C, a cheaper grade, is transacted this month at €440-450/t delivered, while E40 is dropping to €460 delivered, sources suggest.

Pressure is increasing on Benelux scrap export prices. At the start of this week, exporters’ dock prices for HMS 1&2 80:20 in Belgium stood mostly at around €405-410/t, while in the Netherlands prices were €410-420/t delivered (see Kallanish passim).

Turkish mills have decreased their domestic scrap buying prices sharply this week due to the steep fall in imported scrap prices and weak finished steel demand. The latest premium HMS 1&2 80:20 booking was concluded at $480-490/t cfr Turkey.

Sources forecast scrap prices in Western European markets to continue to decline in June, mostly due to lower demand for finished long and flat products.

Natalia Capra France

Green steel needs hydrogen prices to halve: study

A Hydrogen Europe research study has calculated that hydrogen delivered costs in Europe need to move below €3/kg for green steelmaking projects using hydrogen to break even.

It estimates in a report seen by Kallanish that hydrogen prices in Europe are now at some €5.3/kg.

Hydrogen Europe believes the target hydrogen price level can be achieved in 2025-2030 period. “If the green hydrogen production costs fall down as predicted, by 2025-2030 it should be possible to eliminate the cost gap entirely – even in a scenario with low fossil fuel prices. In the meantime, however, if the end consumers are not willing to pay a green premium for fossil-free steel, significant financial support would be needed,” the study explains.

In addition to the challenges of prices, the transition to green steel production also includes the challenge of hydrogen supply. “The total capacity of all installed BF-BOF plants in the EU is around 103 million tonnes of hot metal per year. Switching all of those plants to hydrogen-based DRI/EAF could potentially save up to 196mt of GHG emissions per year, but in order to do so would require up to 5.3mt of renewable hydrogen and up to 370TWh of additional renewable electricity generation (including EAF electricity consumption),” Hydrogen Europe adds.

The third challenge will be providing a constant supply of hydrogen to the reduction shaft. The steel sector will remain a challenging market for imported hydrogen, Hydrogen Europe concludes.

Emanuele Norsa Italy

Italian HRC price decline continues

Italian hot rolled coil prices continue to fall amid a market standoff that is seen continuing over the coming days, Kallanish notes. This is in line with international flat and long steel price declines, together with the downturn in raw material values.

Against the backdrop of recession fears in Europe, end-users, re-rollers and service centres continue to restrict orders to low volumes in both the local market and for import purchases. The general attitude is to wait for prices to decline further.

Sources who spoke to Kallanish say domestic quotes from some producers at €1,020/tonne ($1,063/t) base ex-works are no longer workable. Buying activity today is mostly for small volumes and sometimes from stock.

HRC is offered from the Far East at €950-970/t cfr Italy for July loading, from countries such as Japan, India and South Korea. Some Italian domestic HRC contracts are reported at €1,100-1,140/t base ex-works. By June, values are forecast to reach €1,000-1,050/t base ex-works, sources say. Low visibility and pessimism are dominating sentiment.

Natalia Capra France

EUROMETAL SSC working group discussed digital transformation and pricing for value

EUROMETAL Regional Meeting of SSC from the region Austria + BENELUX + Germany was convened in Neuwied (DE) on 12 May 2022.

The meeting started with a presentation of ArcelorMittal SSC Europe who hosted us in Neuwied. Jean-Marc Butin, CEO ArcelorMittal Downstream Solutions Steel Service Centre (SSC) Europe, introduced the speciality of flat carbon steel processing with tailored products and services dedicated to the automotive segment and to the industry.
The presentation was continued by Michael Nonn, Chief Operating Officer, who introduced us to the developments and features of the steel plant.

Valentin Kaltenbach, CEO of KALTENBACH.SOLUTIONS, adressed the input on digital transformation in SSC operational excellence with a concrete example prepared for the occasion, which consisted of the prior installation of a monitoring system on one of the lines of the Knauf Interfer Stahl Service Center GmbH in Mudersbach.

Daniel Hess, Director at Simon-Kucher and Partners gave us a presentation on “pricing for value” highlighting key topics to achieve pricing power in steel distribution like: escape “commodity trap” and understand value, provide clear guidance for sales teams and build confidence & system support.

Both presentations generated several dialogues and exchanges of opinions.

Thomas Niederhofer, Head of Business Unit Steel at Knauf Interfer and our Chairman for the German-speaking SSCs presented the EUROMETAL Benchmark Report on West EU SSC Distribution and highlighted the interest in having more participants to increase the representativeness of the branch.

The event concluded with a visit to the ArcelorMittal Steel Service Center in Neuwied. The working group meeting in Neuwied was attended by 20 participants.

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