Italy’s Marcegaglia Group has strengthened its presence in France thanks to the acquisition of the Ascometal site in Fos-sur-Mer sanctioned today, May 31, by the Commercial Chamber of the Strasbourg Judicial Court. According to the company in a press release, the new entity will be called ‘Marcegaglia Fos-sur-Mer’.
The group has committed to hire all employees and to invest around €600 million (capex) in a new industrial transformation project. The project will lead to a significant increase in the production of the electric arc furnace to 1-1.2 million mt of steel, to which will be added a continuous slab casting plant (instead of the current ingots) and a state-of-the-art hot coil rolling plant, for a total production capacity between 1.6 million mt and 2 million mt. As a result of the transformation, the Fos-sur-Mer site will meet about 30 percent of Marcegaglia Group's steel requirements and will use efficient and sustainable production methods.
According to Antonio and Emma Marcegaglia, ‘This important acquisition is part of the Group's global strategy to integrate the entire value chain into our production. Furthermore, the Grand Port in Marseille is strategically located in terms of raw materials and logistics. The significant industrial transformation project and the innovative technologies used will make the Fos-sur-Mer site one of our Group's most important assets. This investment is part of a broader strategy of development and decarbonisation of the Group's activities: steel produced from scrap and ‘green DRI’ will, in fact, be able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent compared to full-cycle production.