Luxembourg-headquartered global steel giant ArcelorMittal has announced that its tinplate producing subsidiary Bandas de Etxebarri, located in Spain's Basque region, will restart production in February this year. The site has an annual production capacity of 200,000 mt of tinplate and a workforce of 700 employees.
On the other hand, ArcelorMittal's electric arc furnace (EAF) steel mill in Sestao, also in the Basque region, will remain inactive at least for the whole of the first quarter of the current year because of lackluster demand and high scrap prices. According to Gonzalo Urquijo, chairman of ArcelorMittal Spain, the company has chosen to operate only its Asturias-based blast furnaces in order to improve operational profitability, shipping hot rolled steel coils to the Extebarri plant.
Also, ArcelorMittal's integrated steel mill in Bergara in the Basque region is still affected by low construction industry-related demand, and so the plant will remain idle until the end-use market shows signs of recovery. As a result, all of ArcelorMittal's crude steel production in Spain's Basque region is being supplied by its steel mill at Zumarraga, which produces about 900,000 mt of crude steel a year.
Meanwhile, according to local media reports, ArcelorMittal's beam and profile rolling mill based in Olaberria in the Basque region is facing the current market situation with positive results due to its state-of-the-art features and flexible production. Moreover, the plant will take advantage of the closure of the Villaverde, Madrid-based plant, just recently announced by ArcelorMittal. Accordingly, all the steel beam and profile output of ArcelorMittal in Spain will come from the Olaberria plant, which will operate at close to full production capacity.