Placing the circular economy at the core of Aperam’s growth strategy Luxembourg May 6, 2021 (13:15 CET) – Aperam, announces today a strategic transaction to further strengthen its cost and ESG leadership position with the signature of a Share Purchase Agreement with Franz Haniel & Cie. Gmbh to acquire ELG for an Enterprise Value of EUR 357 million (Equity value EUR 30 million). ELG is a global leader in collecting, trading, processing and recycling of stainless steel scrap and high performance alloys, delivering 1.3 m tonnes of materials annually, employing ~1,300 FTEs in 52 locations in 1 ..read more

Turkish steel producer Habaş A.S. has awarded SMS group the order to expand the hot strip mill at its Aliağa site near Izmir. The rolling mill, supplied and commissioned by SMS, has been in operation since 2014. With this project, Habaş intends to boost the mill capacity to 4.5 tons per year. As well as carbon steels, the product range will include HSLA steels, pipe grades and multi-phase steels. The mill will be able to process slabs of up to 225 millimeters thickness, up to 2,100 millimeters width and up to 12 meters length, and produce hot strip between 700 and 2,100 millimeters wide a ..read more

Nova Trading Service Center has been providing grinding and brushing services for stainless steel coils since 2009. However, after the years of operation of the production line, it was impossible to avoid disassembly of the old grinding and brushing units and their replacement with new components equipped with modern instrumentation and software. The modernized production line has been manufactured by IMEAS, with whom Nova Trading has been cooperating for many years. Earlier, IMEAS executed two contracts – one for Nova Trading and the second for Nova Metale – for delivery and assembly of line ..read more

The breaking of records will likely be a common feature at this summer’s Tokyo Olympics, but the scaling of new heights is not confined to sporting achievements. MEPS has been publishing prices for North American steel products since before the Atlanta Games in 1996, and our US hot rolled coil figure reached its highest ever level in January 2021. This record was smashed once again last month. It is highly likely that March’s declared number will also be an all-time high, with robust market fundamentals persisting. One MEPS US contributor remarked in February that the “most expensive steel is ..read more

Russian steelmaker AO Severstal awarded Danieli with an order for the supply of a new rolling mill for special steels to be installed in Cerepovec. The new plant will produce 1 Mtpy of 5.5 to 32-mm-dia smooth wirerod and coiled bars for the engineering and automotive industries and 8 to 16-mm-dia quenched rebar for construction purposes. Danieli will provide all the technological equipment, automation and advisory services. A Danieli Centro Combustion walking beam reheating furnace will bring to rolling temperature 12-m-long, 150-mm square-billets, at a pace of 170 tph. A single-strand high-sp ..read more

What are the trends in consumption of hot-rolled sheets and fittings in construction and mechanical engineering? We estimate that compared to last year, the market for hot-rolled sheets and rebar, decreased by about 5-10%. Mostly – due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Many companies have cut back on their production programs and have frozen their current projects. Have the prices for hot-rolled sheets and fittings changed over the past 2 months? Over the past few months, prices for hot-rolled sheets and rebar have shown significant growth, which is possible to associate with an increase of foreign ma ..read more

SMS group and Lamina y Placa Comercial S.A de C.V, part of the Villacero Group, successfully completed the hot commissioning of the revamped galvanizing line in Apodaca, Mexico. For the project, SMS supplied a new four-high inline skin-pass mill, a new tension leveler, new fluid equipment and new electrical and automation systems. The project consisted of four consecutive phases, starting with the relocation of the existing equipment on a new bridge structure, thus allowing the installation of the new foundations and equipment, including cold commissioning, to be executed in shadow mode with t ..read more

European steelmakers continue to raise their prices for new transactions on almost a daily basis. Buyers complain of offers being made by suppliers and withdrawn soon afterwards. Mills are maintaining their pricing discipline. Transaction values for orders placed early in December are no longer valid. Many market participants comment that prices are “theoretical” due to the shortage of material. Escalating mill input expenditure is adding to the upward pressure on steel selling figures. Local producers are attempting to formulate their pricing policies in line with the rapid movement in iron o ..read more

U.S. steel producer Big River Steel has successfully commissioned the second construction stage of its steel plant in Osceola, Arkansas, supplied by SMS group. Also for the mill expansion, which doubles the mill’s annual production capacity to approximately three million tons of steel, SMS group supplied the mechanical equipment, the electrical and automation systems, and the digitalization technology. Now, with the second construction stage completed, Big River Steel operates two electric arc furnaces and two twin-ladle furnaces. The steelworks has also been equipped with a further gas c ..read more

Since late 2019, the European Commission has been considering the introduction of a CO2 border tax, covering all industrial sectors. At first glance, this has the appearance of another protectionist measure, aimed at preserving European manufacturing in the face of imports, which supposedly undercut local costs. In truth, a tax which has as its goal the reduction of emissions within Europe can be viewed much more positively than the raft of protectionist tariffs introduced worldwide in recent times. Within the steel sector, President Trump’s Section 232 tariffs, introduced in 2018, have, by ho ..read more