Schoeller Werk, a German maker of stainless welded pipe, will hang on to its investment plans, despite the departure of a managing director at the end of last year.
The company, located in Hellenthal in the Eifel region of North Rhine Westphalia, intends to spend around €40 million ($43m) this year, mainly on production/processing equipment. This includes an XL laser welder for large pipes of 65-127mm diameter, Kallanish learns. For a value in the upper one-digit million euro range, “this is the largest single investment we have ever carried out”, says managing director Alexander Mertens.
Mertens is now the sole director, after the sudden departure of Frank Poschen, with whom he headed the company since 2022. Poschen left because of different strategic opinions, the company indicates.
Last year, Schoeller invested €17m, mostly on measures for energy-efficiency, as it has ambitious plans to operate climate neutrally as of 2035. This will involve in-house hydrogen production. “We want to receive all electrical energy from renewable sources,” Mertens says.
In 2023, Schoeller posted revenue of €240m with production of 64.5 million metres of pipe, Mertens observes. The company employs more than 800 people, in the Eifel and at a speciality pipes subsidiary in Thuringia, eastern Germany, which it acquired in 2019. It had temporarily planned to relocate 170 people from the Eifel to Thuringia, but these plans are off the table, Mertens notes.
Christian Koehl Germany
