European steelmakers have announced several production cuts in the face of weaker demand and more furnaces are likely to be idled in coming months. Some producers have announced restarts and even an expansion, but curtailments are likely to dominate as consumers prefer to run down their stocks in an uncertain economic environment.

Below are some details of the major steel cutbacks, or related announcements, along with limited restarts in Europe:

ArcelorMittal
On October 21st 2011, ArcelorMittal said it would temporarily close a blast furnace at its plant in Dabrowa Gornicza in Poland due to weaker steel demand in Europe. It said the furnace would restart as soon as market conditions allowed.

At the end of September 2011, it said it would halt production at its plant in Sestao, Spain during November and December 2011. In January 2011, however, it extended the closure, saying it did not forecast a market improvement in the South of Europe that would allow a restart in the first months of 2012.

The complex includes two electric arc furnaces and seven rolling mills and has a capacity of 1.8 million tonnes of hot rolled steel coils and 600,000 tonnes of pickled coils per year.

At the end of September 2011, ArcelorMittal said it would idle an electric arc furnace and some steel production lines at its long carbon steel mill in Madrid on weak demand.

It then announced in January 2012 that it will prolong the closure of the Madrid plant for an indefinite period due to continued weakness in demand.

In October 2011, the company shut blast furnace No 1 at its plant in Eisenhuettenstadt, Germany and a second blast furnace at its Florange plant due to weak demand. .

On September 27th 2011, it announced it would idle the electric arc furnace and cut some steel re rolling lines at its Schifflange and Rodange plants in Luxembourg due to poor demand from the construction sector.

The steelmaker announced in June a temporary output stoppage during Q4 at its plant in Liege, Belgium. On October 12th 2011, it said it had decided to shut for good its two blast furnaces near Liege in part due to the worsening economic situation.

In 2010, ArcelorMittal produced 92,629,000 tonnes of steel, of which 37% was in Western Europe and 11% in Central and Eastern Europe.

Celsa
In October 2011, Spanish steelmaker Celsa said it was considering cutting production at some European steel plants in the next few months in response to apparent lower consumption.

The firm, the seventh largest steelmaker in Europe, was operating at an average capacity of 70% in Spain and France and slightly more in the rest of Europe by the end of 2011.

Salzgitter
On September 29th 2011, Germany's second largest steelmaker, Salzgitter AG, said it would cut flat steel production by 10% or roughly 300,000 tonnes, in 2011. The company said some flat steel production had been cut already in Q3, with the rest to come in Q4.

On October 12th 2011, it said it was still producing liquid steel at full capacity, but added it was constantly monitoring the production situation.

SSAB
Sweden's SSAB told Reuters it had yet to restart one of its three blast furnaces in Sweden, which it shut temporarily in summer 2011 for relining. The steelmaker is running just below 70% of its total production capacity of 3.7 million tonnes per year.

On October 12th 2011, the company said it would produce less ordinary steel and more products such as quenched and tempered steel as niche grades are more resistant to economic slowdown.

TATA Steel
TATA, the world's No. 7 steelmaker, announced in December 2011 that it would mothball a hot strip mill at its Llanwern site in Newport, south Wales on weak demand for steel and a poor economic outlook.

The company had already cut production capacity from 85% to 90% in the first half 2011 to 80% to 85% in the second half.

In September 2011, TATA Steel's European unit Corus shut down one of its four blast furnaces in Scunthorpe. Another blast furnace at the site was idled a few years ago on a long term basis, while the two remaining furnaces are currently operating.

TATA Steel Europe is the second largest steel producer in Europe with an annual capacity of 18 million tonnes.

ThyssenKrupp
ThyssenKrupp, Germany's biggest steelmaker, brought forward planned maintenance at blast furnace 9 in Duisburg, Germany, due to a decline in steel flat products orders. The works started at the beginning of January and will take about five months to complete, it said.

The blast furnace has a capacity of 5,000 tonnes per day of steel or almost 2 million tonnes per year. The company owns three other blast furnaces in Duisburg with capacities of 5,000 tonnes, 10,000 tonnes and 12,000 tonnes a day of crude steel production.

ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe is producing crude steel at about 75% of its capacity since January 2012 down from almost 100% one year before while hot rolled mills were working at more than 80% of capacity.

US Steel
US Steel said in its Q2 2011 results that a blast furnace in Serbia that had been shut for planned maintenance early in the quarter remained idled due to reduced spot market prices and weaker demand.

On January 9th 2012, the firm said it would cut back to a four day working week for the majority of the workforce at its under performing Serbian unit to reduce costs.

On December 15th 2011, the company said it would scale down production at its Slovak unit by cutting one working day a week from January.

voestalpine
Austrian steel products group voestalpine said it was reducing steel production capacity by 10% in fourth quarter 2011 and would decide in January 2012 on capacity for the quarters ahead.

(Sourced from Reuters)