Jul 17 2006
Arcelor is to set up a steel service centre (SSC) in Romania with Spain's Bamesa. This new centre will be 40%-owned by Arcelor and will be located in the Topoloveni region, close to the Dacia (Renault group) plants that produce the Logan car.
The new SSC will supply high-quality steels for specific applications in the automotive and domestic appliance industries. The two partners expect to invest euro30 million in the SSC between now and 2008. The SSC will eventually have annual production capacity of 300,000 tonnes. Construction work has already begun on a 130,000 m2 plot of land, and the SSC will be up and running in the first half of 2007.
The SSC will feature leading-edge technology, and will use press blanking (PBL), slitting, cut-to-length and trapezoidal lines to meet customers' requirements for sheet metal that is cut and formed to order.
Gonzalo Urquijo, Arcelor CFO and Senior Executive Vice President in charge of A3S (Arcelor Steel Solutions and Services), made the following comments: "This new SSC will allow us, working alongside our partner Bamesa, to seize growth opportunities in Central and Eastern European markets."
Michel Wurth, Deputy CEO in charge of Arcelor's flat products sector, stressed the importance of this initiative as part of Arcelor's leadership strategy in the automotive industry: "This new SSC enables us to extend our relationships with existing major international customers moving into this region. As world number one in automotive steels, Arcelor offers the same high product quality and tailored service standards wherever our customers are located."
Bamesa and Arcelor have already been working together for more than eight years. Their joint SSC in Turkey (Bamesa Çelik) is the leading centre in its market.