
Liberty Galati restarts BF amid plate, coated demand
Liberty Galati will restart its blast furnace No.5 in the coming days, on the back of healthy demand for plate and coated products, the firm says.
Galati temporarily idled its hot end in May to “ensure a profitable and sustainable production”, with rolling continuing using slab from stock. Liberty’s Dunaújváros plant in Hungary had been supplying coke feedstock to Galati but began the process of closing its two coke oven batteries in June.
The restart comes after Liberty Group executive chairman Sanjeev Gupta met with Romanian Deputy Prime Minister Marian Neacsu in Bucharest this week. The meeting covered Galati’s imminent restart plans to serve local customers in infrastructure and shipbuilding, and Liberty’s plans for investment in green steel in Romania.
The company requested government support related to CO2 certificate allocation and the existing incentives for energy intensive consumers. The Romanian government will work with the company to identify solutions to support the restart of the blast furnace, Liberty notes.
“With the business now in a more stable position, the restart of blast furnace No.5 will help to exploit the advantages the business has in supply of plate and coated products to our customers that includes critical infrastructure projects in Romania and across Europe,” Liberty says. Galati is a “standalone ringfenced business, unaffected by the issues faced by its sister plant in Ostrava,” it adds.
The Ostrava regional court commenced insolvency proceedings against Liberty Ostrava on 13 June, while Liberty initiated the sales process for the steelworks and filed for a judicial reorganisation of the Czech plant (see Kallanish passim). It is unclear if the Ostrava works will find a buyer given the weak steel demand and investment climate in Europe.
Adam Smith Poland