Salzgitter AG and Kloeckner & Co SE said that the market for the alloy may improve in the second half.

Kloeckner said that it expects earnings to considerably improve, buttressed by the stabilizing prices and volumes. Mr Thomas Ludwig CEO of Kloeckner said that "We are cautiously optimistic about the second half of the year."

Salzgitter said that there will be a possible brightening in the second half with Salzgitter’s pretax loss narrowing compared with EUR 195.2 million for the first half. It added that "A recovery in the steel market is discernable for a few product groups. There are as yet no signs of a strong and sustained turnaround."

(Sourced from www.bloomberg.net)