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Assofermet: Institutional relations, critical raw materials, sustainability challenges and CBAM come to the fore as main challenges

Tuesday, 16 July 2024 14:24:12 (GMT+3)   |   Brescia
       

On May 15 this year, Assofermet, the association representing Italian companies in the steel, scrap, metals and hardware sectors, appointed Cinzia Vezzosi as its new president, as SteelOrbis previously reported. Vezzosi is the first woman to hold this role in the association.

In this interview with SteelOrbis, Cinzia Vezzosi tells us about her career and addresses some of the key issues of her mandate, namely, innovation, sustainability, dialogue, safeguards and the future of the Italian steel industry.

How do you feel about being the new president of Assofermet and what do you expect from this mandate? What can you tell us about your career to date?

I am thrilled and proud of the role that the member companies have chosen for me. It is a great honor. I also feel responsible, as I now represent them. We will face harsh challenges over the next three years and it will be essential to defend the interests of the companies that belong to our sectors. We will do this by keeping our relations alive on the institutional side, with Italian ministries, the European Commission and all relevant institutions.

I arrived at Assofermet a few months after founding the company Zetamet in 2004. It was one of my first choices as an entrepreneur and I was sure of its value. I’ve been an active member of the association since 2005, and ten years later I was elected president of Assofermet Metalli. I held the post from 2015 to 2021, for two terms, and this allowed me to work closely with the management and address the main issues in our sector. I became vice-president in 2021. This drew me even closer to specific themes and it also allowed me to build relations with entrepreneurs and institutions. These 20 years in the association enabled me to develop a range of competences which, I am sure, will be very significant during this mandate.

What are your priorities as new president?

One of my objectives is to strengthen institutional relations. We have worked hard in these last few years and we have managed to build important channels and synergies that we would like to intensify, both at a national and European level.

But we will also follow relevant topics such as the CBAM, safeguard measures, WSR and waste shipment, as well as the CRMA on critical raw materials. They are very specific themes in some cases, such as the WSR, whereas in other cases we are talking about cross-sectoral issues, such as the CBAM. This will then involve all of our executives and it will start essential discussions for our categories.

I hope that the member companies will still be willing to meet, to deepen market issues, and do networking. In the next three years, it will be crucial to create opportunities to aggregate.

How will you promote innovation and sustainability in the segments that Assofermet represents?

Sustainability is perhaps one of the most relevant themes in our sectors, as we are lucky to have very sensitive members who are close to companies that recover resources and supply recycled steel and metals to these sectors. Sustainability is key in the steel sector and it is “circular” in its DNA. I would say that this sector has led the way and helped to create awareness. Companies have invested a lot in this regard, both in energy solutions and in the innovation of operational processes, or simply in management strategies. Over the years, we have provided training courses on both digitalization and ESG, in order to bring market participants closer to a more sustainable approach at management, financial and governance levels. However, there’s still a lot to do, which will be an objective of this mandate, also by virtue of improved access to credit which will increasingly be linked to the ESG values expressed by companies.

What are the main obstacles that the metal and hardware industries will encounter in the next few years?

We have many open fronts. The CBAM is certainly one of them and I believe it will have a major financial impact from 2026. However, companies already consider it far too complex and to involve too many responsibilities. It is a broad theme which will involve steel, metals and hardware, and it will have different variations. Also, the safeguard theme has been vigorously emerging in the last few days and it will have relevant consequences in steel trade and distribution requiring great attention. We are also working on the WSR, the new regulation on waste shipment, that companies will adopt in the coming years and that will lead to additional costs both in terms of internal administration and external compliance. We’ll have to face many challenges, but we are certainly committed to these themes.

How do you plan to strengthen the collaboration among players in the supply chain?

I believe in constructive dialogue and I would like that to be the figure of my mandate. An open and objective discussion conducted by respecting roles can only strengthen relationships and open up new and unexpected collaborations. A wealthy supply chain is undoubtedly a value for all stakeholders and I am sure that it must be preserved with everyone’s commitment. We will be there.

What is your view about the current conditions in the Italian steel market and what are your expectations for the future trends?

I would read the steel market at two levels of depth, one short term and one medium term. We see a slowdown in demand in the short term, especially after a month - April - that saw a massive return to purchases by steel consumers. Consumption in general is on the low side because of the challenges of context (planning investments is becoming more and more complex), financial issues (cost of money), and market issues (too many areas of the world are out of the loop). On the other hand, we are concerned about the gradual decline of the entire EU production structure in the long term, with a 40 percent decline in steel production observed since 2007 and with more and more steel-consuming sectors struggling because of the system of rules and constraints imposed by the regulators. We need to refocus the actions of EU institutions on creating favorable conditions that allow competitive business and to move from protecting upstream sectors to protecting downstream sectors and from protecting producers to protecting production.

 

Talking about the recent changes in the safeguard system, what are the implications for market participants?

The changes introduced to the safeguard system have taken most market players by surprise. They have marked a radical tightening of the system, especially in the hot rolled coil and wire rod segments. The 15 percent cap on the “other countries” quota for each country for HRC is actually a 40 percent cut of the quota itself. We are talking about excluding 1.5 million mt to 2 million mt of HRC from the European market at a time when domestic production is slowing down. Moreover, this amendment is being applied immediately without taking into account about six months of orders already launched and stocks at ports. Basically, the countries belonging to the “other countries” quota will be out of the game for negotiations over the next six months. We will have an excess of stocked material at ports and shrinkflation caused by missed clearance aimed at avoiding or postponing duties.

Another key point is its overlap with the CBAM for six months. The combination of the two systems, plus the existing antidumping measures, will make imports a complex and risky operation. Once again, it has been decided to protect production without paying the slightest attention to the protection of downstream consumption. We are also concerned about the CBAM itself. It is complex, confused and inadequate, but above all dangerous, because it does not cover EU manufacture, leaving it to face the massive imports of finished and semi-finished products from the Far East. It should be radically simplified to be extended downstream and, in the end, it should be translated into a country-based tariff if we want it to work properly. It is, however, a Copernican revolution - it is too hard to apply, unless the EU decides to completely redefine its priorities.

Given the new investments in EAF technology in Europe, how do you think this will affect scrap consumption and scrap flows?

In the current decarbonization trend, it will be inevitable to see a growth in demand for recycled steel in Europe or at least we hope so. Europe is the only continent with an abundance of this resource, but at the moment it is forced to export due to the lack of demand. Thus, with increasing demand, we could see a change in flows and a marked regionalization of the market, with operators keen to satisfying the needs of the supply chain locally rather than exporting. However, the choice to move to EAF technologies will require time and, in many cases, it will only support BOF plants, so it is unlikely that the recycled steel surplus will be absorbed by a strong and stable demand in the medium term. Moreover, much will depend on EU steel production, which is continuously shrinking and which fell to an all-time low in 2023. This factor will play the most important role in future developments. 

One last question: what do you think of the situation of the former Ilva? Is there any hope?

I think so. We recently had a meeting with minister Urso and the commissioners just to talk about a plan to relaunch the Taranto plant. We are sure that the ministry is strongly committed and that much is being done to create the best conditions for a restart. There are, of course, unknown circumstances as the situation is undoubtedly critical, but the Acciaierie d’Italia plant, in addition to being an important asset in the Italian industrial landscape, is above all a strategic asset for the Italian steel industry that has had to source elsewhere due to the absence of the domestic producer. I would add that the industries linked to Acciaierie d’Italia form an economic fabric that must be preserved and developed as a resource of the Italian territory. Therefore, not only would I say that there is hope, but I believe that we must all go in the same direction so that the Taranto steel plant can once again play a leading role among European plants.


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