ArcelorMittal Poland appoints Koszuta chairman
ArcelorMittal Poland (AMP) has appointed chief executive Wojciech Koszuta as chairman of the board, replacing long-standing chairman Sanjay Samaddar who becomes supervisory board chairman.
Samaddar will continue in his role as country head Poland and ceo of ArcelorMittal Europe – Long Products.
“I am exceptionally privileged to have been associated with ArcelorMittal Poland for 20 glorious years, in various roles as CEO and chairman of the Board of Directors. The 20 years jubilee, which we celebrated this year was a perfect opportunity for summing up these two decades, during which we have tried to play a leading role in the development of the steel industry in Poland – despite crises and challenging market situations,” Samaddar says.
Koszuta has been with AMP since 2000, for 18 months as ceo.
At the European Economic Congress in Katowice in May, he highlighted the firm’s recent investments in its BF-based production route but conceded that decarbonisation will influence its production process in the medium term (see Kallanish passim).
AMP is building a natural gas-based hydrogen plant at its Krakow re-rolling site to feed the two galvanizing lines at the location. The PLN 100 million ($24.2m) plant, being set up by Linde, will see hydrogen production begin at the end of 2026. Its flagship Dabrowa Gornicza steelworks, which supplies Krakow with slab, will soon need to choose whether to transform to EAF steelmaking or prolong BF-based production.
Adam Smith Poland
ArcelorMittal Hunedoara reduces production amid lack of orders
Romania-based ArcelorMittal Hunedoara has reduced production from 9 December until the end of the year due to a lack of orders, the firm says in a statement filed with the Bucharest Stock Exchange.
“In accordance with the provisions of law and regulation, we inform you of the temporary reduction of the company’s activity,” the message says. “This has been made considering the economic difficulties faced by the company caused by the lack of orders.”
Employees affected by the move will be paid 75% of their base salaries during this period, it adds.
ArcelorMittal did not reply to Kallanish request for comment.
The Romanian firm took similar measures in 2022, also due to a lack of orders.
In 2020, it also stopped production temporarily due to the Covid pandemic.
Electric arc furnace-based Hunedoara, part of the ArcelorMittal Europe – Long Products division, produces sections, billet and merchant bar, employing 584 people and some contractors. The firm produces 200,000-300,000 tonnes/year of crude steel.
Hunedoara remained part of ArcelorMittal after the steelmaking group sold its flagship Romanian Galati steelworks to Liberty Steel in 2019.
Svetoslav Abrossimov Bulgaria
ArcelorMittal Germany to close warehouse in Olpe
ArcelorMittal Stahlhandel Deutschland, the German distribution unit of ArcelorMittal group, says it intends to close its warehouse in Olpe, in the Siegerland region of North Rhine Westphalia, due to weak market conditions.
The closure is to be completed by the middle of next year and the 63 employees at the site were informed in a meeting last Tuesday, the company tells Kallanish. The decision has been made on the basis of weak market conditions in southern Westphalia, where customer demand is subject to a structural decline, ArcelorMittal explains. Since 2017, the market in the region has shrunk by 30%, it says.
ArcelorMittal’s announcement is another big blow to the Siegerland/southern Westphalia region within a short time. In November, thyssenkrupp announced the planned closure of its coating site in Kreuztal, with several hundred employees affected.
Olpe and Kreuztal are both located northwest of Siegen. The region used to be a centre of steelmaking and processing due to its iron ore reserves in previous centuries. It is still home to many companies in the sector, including the mills of Deutsche Edelstahlwerke and BGH. Its inland location, with access mostly by trucks and motorways, has become a clear disadvantage after closures of outdated bridges in recent years.
Christian Koehl Germany
ArcelorMittal may close two French service centres
ArcelorMittal’s French service centre division is undergoing a restructuring process, which may result in the closure of two service centres in the country, Kallanish notes.
The Reims and Denain service centres, in northern France, are currently facing economic difficulties attributed to a downturn in the domestic steel sector.
ArcelorMittal Centres de Services management met with its service centre units on Tuesday to announce a project to reorganise the company and adapt its production capacities. This includes the shutdown of Reims and Denain.
“In a difficult economic context, ArcelorMittal Centres de Services is facing a sharp drop in activity among its industry and automotive customers which has accelerated in recent months,” an ArcelorMittal spokesperson tells Kallanish.
“During this meeting, the management explained the constraints which led it to present this project, and invited the social partners to a future meeting at the end of November as part of the information/consultation process,” the spokesperson adds. “Negotiations with trade unions will take place on social measures in order to limit the impact on employment.”
“The threat of a decline in production capacity presents a significant concern for European steelmakers, placing the French steel industry at risk,” the CGT unions say. “The impact on employment levels will be substantial. For several months, the CGT ArcelorMittal Service Centres [unions] has been notifying management regarding the prevailing economic and industrial conditions.”
The automotive sector accounts for 60% of total orders, and CGT proposed alternatives to address the demands of the electric vehicle market. “The management displayed a cautious approach, opting not to take immediate action and refraining from investing,” the unions add.
ArcelorMittal’s service centres segment includes eight facilities in France. Denain and Reims offer various services including de-coiling and slitting for the automotive and industrial sectors.
This comes after the news that ArcelorMittal’s long and flat products distribution branch in Bologna, Italy, is also set to permanently close on 31 December. Customers have been notified of the decision and reassured about the status of pending deliveries. The steelmaker’s other distribution hub in Flero, Brescia, continues to operate.
Rumours have been circulating for weeks that ArcelorMittal is mulling the closure of several service centres in Europe.
Natalia Capra France
ArcelorMittal Poland to build hydrogen plant to power steel sheet galvanizing lines
ArcelorMittal Poland has contracted Linde Gaz Polska to build a hydrogen production plant at its Krakow branch to supply process gas to two galvanizing lines, the steel company said.
The PLN 100 million ($24 million) investment has already started with design work underway. The plant will be producing hydrogen from natural gas with the startup planned for the end of 2026.
“The project with Linde is [meant] to ensure a reliable supply of hydrogen for our sheet galvanizing operations,” the director of the Krakow branch, Lukasz Skorupa, said in the company’s statement.
Separately, ArcelorMittal Poland is building several hydrogen furnaces that will make it possible to eliminate ammonia in the annealing plant boosting its safety, Skorupa said.
ArcelorMittal Poland has not used coal as a fuel since 2018, and it terminated coke production in July 2024. Its installations — the hot rolling mill and the cold rolling mill, the galvanizing and color-coating lines — now operate exclusively on natural gas, according to Skorupa.
“We are constantly improving the quality of our products, expanding their range, and at the same time gradually reducing our impact on the environment,” ArcelorMittal Poland CEO Wojciech Koszuta said.
“In our processes, we replace technologies with those that have a lower impact on the environment. Hence the elimination of ammonia and the transition to hydrogen.”
ArcelorMittal committed to decarbonization investment in Belgium
Earlier this week, numerous reports emerged in Belgium media that ArcelorMittal was planning to only invest in electric-arc furnaces (EAFs) at the site.
“We’ve not said that [the DRI investment is cancelled]. Although there have been have been some reports in the Belgian media [on November 19]… nothing has changed. We’ve been saying all year we are working on the engineering for our European decarbonization projects and that remains the case – no final decisions have been made,” the spokesperson told Fastmarkets.
In September 2021, ArcelorMittal has signed a letter of intent with the Belgian and Flemish governments to support it’s €1.1 ($1.2) billion investment in
decarbonisation at the Ghent site.
The company also announced plans to build a 2.5 million tonne DRI plant and two electric-arc furnaces in Ghent and said the new facilities would operate in parallel with a state-of-the-art blast furnace (BF) that is set to use waste wood and plastics as an alternative to fossil carbon.
Currently, ArcelorMittal Ghent operates BFs with a combined capacity of more than 4 million tpy of pig iron per year, along with a 5 million tpy basic-oxygen furnace (BOF).
The site produces hot-rolled, cold-rolled and galvanized coil.
The company’s plan to switch to DRI/EAF production follows the common approach to decarbonization being taken by Europe’s flat steel producers – to replace BF-BOF capacities with EAFs and hydrogen-fuelled DRI modules.
Possible decoupling of iron and steelmaking in Europe
More than 50 million tonnes of new green steelmaking capacity – using just EAFs or EAFs and DRI – is expected to come online in Europe in 2025-2030.
Moving to THE DRI/EAF production route, however, raises concerns in the European market, however, due to energy-intensive nature of DRIs and the lack of energy infrastructure in Europe to support such a transition.
Europe needs to build out its production of fossil-free electricity to produce green hydrogen to feed future DRI capacities. But the volumes needed for large-scale electrolysis to produce green hydrogen are significant – requiring an additional 400 terawatt hours (TWh) of CO2-free electricity in 2050 – and about seven times the amount of energy purchased by the sector currently, according to estimates from the European steel association, Eurofer.
From 2025 to 2030 renewable electrolyser capacity within the EU is expected to rise to 40 GW, producing up to 10 million tonnes of renewable hydrogen, according to the European Commission.
Using hydrogen with existing DRI modules in Europe is currently too expensive to be competitive, Fastmarkets understands, with hydrogen prices currently seen at around €5-8 per kg. The price of hydrogen needs to be “around €2.5-3.0 per kg to make it commercially viable for steelmaking,” a steel producer in Northern Europe told Fastmarkets.
Around 140,000-150,000 tonnes of hydrogen per year would be required to fuel one 2 million tpy DRI module, sources said.
Some market participants have said that it would, therefore, make sense to split iron and steelmaking in Europe and to import hot-briquetted iron (HBI) and DRI from abroad, such as the Middle East-North Africa region, where HBI/DRI production is more commercially viable.
“Shifting energy-intensive iron production to a resource-rich region would allow Europe to produce green steel with imported HBI/DRI,” an energy producer in Europe said.
Europe is already importing significant tonnages of HBI, with import volumes in 2023 reaching 2.61 million tonnes, according to Global Trade Tracker (GTT).
Northwest European buyers doubt coil price hike move
Managers at large coil purchasing companies in Germany and Austria were taken by surprise on Wednesday by ArcelorMittal’s hot rolled coil price hike in Europe to €590/tonne ($652) ex-works.
“Only today, I received an effective-price offer from ArcelorMittal, but when I re-calculate it, it is certainly lower than that [€590],” one Austrian source told Kallanish on Wednesday. He could not give a comparable base price, as the offer concerned a special specification, but notes it would not be in line with the new price hike.
“The latest move, from last week to this, was down a bit further,” says one unawares German service centre manager, assessing the latest offer at slightly below €550/t ex-works.
Another manager doubts that mills’ production capacities for the fourth quarter are already filled enough to justify such a move. “There must be some other background to it,” he says, suggesting that mills might try to flex their muscles in advance of the upcoming Euroblech fair.
“And anyway, who would pay that [€590]?” the Austrian source wonders, in view of continued sluggish demand in Europe. His latest order from a western European mill last week was at €580/t delivered, which would translate to €530/t ex-works, close to the low point of the latest cycle heard by other sources.
One well-connected observer does however confirm he heard of the new offer, and that ArcelorMittal would not book any additional volumes at previous, lower prices. “It’s not official, really, because they have failed to exert it often enough in the past,” he says, but he notes that mills do have a point, as competition from Asia is waning somewhat.
Sources reported on Wednesday that ArcelorMittal is raising coil offers in Europe, with immediate effect (see separate story).
Christian Koehl Germany
EU HRC market gears up for mill consolidation
The European hot-rolled coil (HRC) market is gearing up for potential consolidation over the coming year, as mills grapple with tough market conditions.
The share prices of key European producers have rallied in recent days, despite continued weakness in HRC prices. Global steelmaker ArcelorMittal’s shares traded above €22/share ($24/share) on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange at 12:30 GMT today, up from €19.70/share on 10 September. This strength is partly attributable to the expected release of economic stimulus measures in China, and the US Federal Reserve’s recent interest rate cut, sources suggest. But market strength could also be because of growing talk that a new wave of consolidation is on its way, fuelled by decarbonisation efforts and the strained positions’ of some mills.
There has long been talk that steel coil producer Tata Steel Netherlands could be sold, after the Dutch state agreed to contribute to its decarbonisation spend. Recent difficulties at Germany’s ThyssenKrupp have also sparked suggestions it could be an acquisition target. Czech Republic energy company EP Corporate Group (EPCG) recently completed its purchase of a 20pc stake in ThyssenKrupp’s Steel Europe division, and could increase this to 50pc in the near future. EPCG owner Daniel Kretinsky may be seeking a strategic partner to help run the business, sparking talks that other mills could bid for a stake in the company.
ThyssenKrupp shares were trading at €3.20/share on Deutsche Borse Xetra at 12:30 GMT today, up from €2.78/share on 10 September.
Concerns over strong positions in niche markets, particularly tin plate, saw Tata Steel and Thyssekrupp call off their proposed joint venture in May 2019. But the market is in a different position now. Some mills have reduced capacity but new entrants are trying to join the market as green producers. And the global market is oversupplied, putting European producers in a difficult financial predicament, especially given their capital-intensive efforts to decarbonise. In the case of ThyssenKrupp, expectations that the mill will reduce its production footprint could partially alleviate potential competition concerns in the event of a takeover.
ArcelorMittal Eisenhüttenstadt launches hot strip mill automation platform
ArcelorMittal Eisenhüttenstadt has produced the first coil after upgrading the automation solution at its hot-rolling mill. It is the first mill be fully equipped with Primetals’ latest state-of-the-art automation platform, Kallanish hears from the technology supplier.
The implementation was carried out during scheduled maintenance periods in two steps for the finishing mill and coiler area, and the roughing mill, respectively. With the new automation equipment and software, operators at the hot-rolling mill now benefit from higher availability, according to Primetals.
During the migration, core functions remained in operation, allowing operators and maintenance staff to immediately navigate the software with ease. The automation devices were mainly installed in the former system’s control cabinets, resulting in a short and swift implementation period. Joint preparations and top-level performance of the automation platform were key factors in bringing the plant back to normal production in a short time, Primetals notes.
Christian Koehl Germany
ArcelorMittal completes first phase of Differdange decarbonisation project
ArcelorMittal is implementing the decarbonisation project initial phase at its Luxembourg long products facility in Differdange.
It has successfully relocated the black slag pits from their previous position on the outskirts of the site, which was in close proximity to the neighbourhood. A previously unused hall has been transformed into a space to receive the liquid slag in close proximity to the electric arc furnace.
Modifications were made to the facility without interrupting production. This included expanding the storage space and pits inside the hall, as well as installing cladding to insulate the building from the outside. The steelmaker states in a note obtained by Kallanish that placing the slag pits in a covered hall has the advantage of reducing the main nuisances caused by the pouring of slag. The Luxembourg state provided up to 30% of the funding for the pit relocation.
In the second phase, Differdange will install a former converter secondary dedusting system from the ArcelorMittal Florange plant by the end of the year. The new dedusting unit will be connected to local canopy hoods for the rolling mill and steel plant by the end of 2025.
ArcelorMittal is investing in decarbonisation, product quality and increasing capacity at its Luxembourg long products facilities in Differdange and Belval. The company aims to commission new and revamped equipment at both plants between 2024 and 2026. The investment will improve environmental footprint, relocate by-products management areas within the plants, reduce overall emissions, and increase output at Belval.
The company is also launching the “Steelup” project at Belval that involves a new digitised “no man on the floor” EAF with increased safety, a 15% energy consumption reduction, and 15% heavy sections productivity hike. The project includes a new vacuum degassing system to reduce dissolved gas and a continuous casting transformation system for new high-carbon steel grades and heavier beam blanks.
The modernisation will help to reach a certified low carbon footprint for steel of below 300kg per tonne, cutting CO2 by 200,000 t/year. The Belval site will obtain the XCarb label for rails produced from mill A.
The new Belval EAF costs about €67 million ($74.2m), including €15m from state subsidies. The Differdange revamp will cost around €18m, including €5m from the local government.
ArcelorMittal Luxembourg produced 1.9 million tonnes of crude steel in 2022 and employs 3,368 workers. The new Belval EAF will increase ArcelorMittal Luxembourg production to 2.5 million t/y of steel.
Natalia Capra France