Altos Hornos de México (AHMSA) announced this week that it will launch in mid-2014 its new electric furnace that will raise production to over 5 million tons per year.
Luis Landois, Senior Director of Sales at AHMSA said at a conference this week that last year the company produced just over 4 million tons of steel products, and by 2015, they expect to be producing around 5 million tons.
The executive said that they face a challenge because Mexico has seen an increase of imported steel products, and flats imports alone reached 5 million tons for the year.
He said that there are two types of imported products: those which are imported out of necessity because there is no domestic production or not enough volume; and those which are made under unfair trading conditions.
He explained that the 5 million tons of flat steel imports represents a high percentage, considering that Mexico consumes between 11 million and 12 million tons per year. Also, from 2011 to 2012 imports of plate sheet grew 75 percent and much of this was unfairly traded, he said.