Aperam Joins the Growing List of Steel Mills Halting Production in
Strategic Research Institute
Published on :
26 Sep, 2022, 6:36 am
Reuters reported that even with four wind turbines and over 50,000 solar panels at its site in eastern Belgium, stainless steel maker Aperam has been forced to halt production as surging energy prices bite. The company is now paying for energy in a month what it used to pay in a year and has idled a facility that would normally be melting stainless steel scrap and converting it into slabs, employing about 300 workers. Aperam's CEO Stainless Europe Mr Bernard Hallemans told Reuters “We have temporary levers to overcome a certain period but this cannot last for years. If this does, we will see a de-industrialisation of sectors like ours and Europe will also, for base metals like ours, become dependent on imports.”
Mr Hallemans said “Summer maintenance would normally cap production at about 80% of capacity, but the figure is around 50% since late June, after Russia sharply cut gas supplies to Europe, sending already inflated prices to new records. Europe must come up with answers. The potential payout producers such as Aperam would receive is unclear and could be months away, with energy prices sky-high.”
The 1,200 employees at Aperam's Genk plant risk temporary unemployment, with take-home pay cut by at least a fifth just as inflation hits 10%. The plant has suffered temporary stoppages before, notably during the 2008-2009 global financial crisis.
Spiraling energy costs have forced steel makers to cut output across Europe, threatening mass plant shutdowns some warn could be permanent in a sector that employs more than 300,000 and contributes tens of billions of euros to the region's economy. And the list is growing every week
25 July - Liberty Ostrava announced that it will temporarily idle its blast furnace No 2 for the repair and upgrade works
2 August - ArcelorMittal Eisenhüttenstadt has applied for short-time work for August and September 2022 and has reduced activities in certain area from 1 August in Germany
2 August - Italian steelmaker Acciaierie d’Italia is idling a second blast furnace at its Taranto plant in Italy
26 August - Aperam has not yet resumed production after the summer holidays at Genk in plants in Belgium
26 August - Aperam has partially closed production at Châtelet plant in Charleroi in Belgium
29 August - Ferriere Nord Pittini has suspended work at the Osoppo plant in the Italy
30 August - Acerinox announced 15-day closure at its Los Barrios stainless steel plant at Cadiz in Spain
31 August - Acerinox announced 15-day closure at its Algeciras stainless plant in Spain
31 August - Cogne Acciai Speciali halted production at Aosta plant in Italy for 6 days
1 September - ArcelorMittal announced temporary shutdown of its Blast Furnace A in Asturias in Spain, which will take place by the end of September.
1 September - ArcelorMittal has delayed the startup of EAF steel plant in Sestao r in Spain after the summer break for maintenance work until further notice
1 September - Swiss Steel Group’s Ascometal will implement production stoppages in November and December for three weeks at in Fos-sur-Mer and Hagondange in France.
2 September - ArcelorMittal announced that it will shut down one blast furnace at the Bremen plat in Germany & the direct reduction plant will also be shut down from the fourth quarter
2 September - ArcelorMittal announced that the Hamburg plant in Germany has already reduced operations by around 80%
2 September - Italy’s Beltrame Group’s Stahl Gerlafingen steel plant in the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland has been granted permission to resort to short-time working from October to December
2 September - Ferroalloy producer Ferroglobe’s subsidiary FerroAtlantica has suspended the last two furnaces in operation at its ferromanganese and silicomanganese plant in Boo de Guarnizo in northern Spain
2 September - Arvedi has shut down production at its Cremona plant in Italy for the entire week & restart plans are unclear
3 September - ArcelorMittal is taking down 1.8 million tonne per annum Blast Furnace 3 at its Dunkirk site in France for relining from the end of September
3 September - US Steel Kosice has idled Blast Furnace 2 at Kosice in Slovakia for a 60-day stoppage by preponing scheduled maintenance
6 September - Outokumpu has delayed the restart of a ferrochrome furnace
6 September -Slovenia based special steel maker SIJ Group has decided to optimize production volumes, which will be reduced by around a third in September and by 40% in the fourth quarter
7 September - Spanish steel company Megasa has cut steel productions at Naron plant in Spain due to the high prices of electricity by reorganizing shifts
7 September - Ascometal to Halt Production at Fos-sur-Mer & Hagondange in France
8 September - Italian steel maker Alfa Acciai’s rebar maker Acciaierie di Sicilia in Catania in Italy, just one week of operation, announced a two week shutdown due to unsustainable energy costs and a consequent drop in orders.
19 September - Italy’s leading steelmaker Arvedi has stopped three of the four electric arc furnaces at two Italian plants due to high electricity prices and low demand for finished products. From 19 September 2022, Arvedi temporarily stopped production on EAF No 1 and EAF No 2 at the plant in Cremona. Also, Arvedi stopped one of the two EAFs and cold lines at its plant in Terni for two weeks from 16 September.
23 September – Stainless steel maker Aperam has suspended production at Gent in Belgium.