August 2019

ArcelorMittal Brasil has decided to continue the idling of blast furnace No2 at its Tubarão plant, in the southeastern Brazilian state of Espírito Santo, at least until the end of this year because of the tough market conditions, chief executive officer Benjamin Baptista told Fastmarkets on Wednesday August 21.

ArcelorMittal Brasil has decided to continue the idling of blast furnace No2 at its Tubarão plant, in the southeastern Brazilian state of Espírito Santo, at least until the end of this year because of the tough market conditions, chief executive officer Benjamin Baptista told Fastmarkets on Wednesday August 21. Work to refurbush the unit started…

Negative Sentiment Continues to Suppress European Steel Prices

The success of price hikes, by European steel producers, is muted. Mill profit margins are unsustainably low, as a result of rising input expenditure. Iron ore costs continue to soar, and those for coking coal remain at an elevated level. Moreover, European steelmakers are battling with increased outlay associated with CO2 emissions. The imperative for…

NLMK Group migrates online marketplace and customer service to new platform

NLMK Group, a global steel company, is migrating its online marketplace https://nlmk.shop/ and customer service to SAP C/4HANA platform (formerly known as SAP Hybris), a part of SAP Customer Experience solutions portfolio,  to enable prompt delivery of a wide range of steel products and a unique customer service offer. NLMK’s e-marketplace for SME’s https://nlmk.shop/ was…

MMK increases deliveries to automotive industry by 23%

Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works (MMK) delivered more than 314,000 tonnes of steel products to the automotive industry in the first half of 2019, exceeding the previous year’s figure for the same period by 23%. The share of shipments to the automotive industry in the first six months of this year amounted to 7.5% of…

Severstal to develop its own digital businesses

PAO Severstal, one of the world’s leading vertically integrated steel and mining companies, has established a new unit that will be focused on the development of digital businesses. The team will be headed by Sergey Khabarov, previously investment director at Genome Ventures, an innovative human capital development business. The new unit will be part of…

UMMC signs debut EUR100m PXF syndicated loan

Ural Mining Metallurgical Company (UMMC), one of the top Russian producers of copper, zinc and other precious metals in Russia signs a debut EUR100m syndicated loan. Mandated Lead Arrangers, Bookrunners and Lenders are Raiffeisen Bank International AG, AO Raiffeisenbank, PJSC ROSBANK and SOCIETE GENERALE. Raiffeisen Bank International AG and AO Raiffeisenbank acted as documentation agent…

Iron ore, steel futures rise on China stimulus

Dalian and Singapore iron ore futures rose on Monday, buoyed along with other Asian steel benchmarks as fresh moves by China’s central bank to prop up its slowing economy lifted the overall mood in financial markets. The most-traded iron ore contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange, with January 2020 expiry, climbed as much as 2.2%…

Contribution of domestic tourists to GDP could help India beat the slump

By Neeraj Kaushal If millions of Indians simply went on vacations, visiting domestic tourist destinations, would that energise India’s slowing economy? Could the economy bounce back not because people were working harder, but because they decided to take a break from work and instead went on a ‘Char-Dham Yatra’? Believe it or not, the answer…