Company sees improvement in demand for thick plates and hot coils
Liberty Galati, a Romanian steel company that is part of the GFG Alliance group of companies owned by Sanjeev Gupta, announces the resumption of blast furnace No. 5 after its suspension in January this year. Kallanish reports this with reference to company data.
The company is currently increasing furnace capacity. After reaching the unit's planned capacity, the company plans to resume the operation of rolling lines, including at factories in the Czech Republic and Hungary. The company sees an improvement in demand for thick plates and hot-rolled coils.
«Despite challenging conditions in the European market, Liberty Galati managed to overcome a series of difficulties in recent months and restore its main production facilities, which will benefit both the Romanian factory and the company's other European operations. We hope that this year's improvement in the steel market will give Europe the necessary impetus and a certain boost to our operations», said Teuns Victor CEO of Liberty's European division.
On October 17, 2023, it became known that Liberty Steel had shut down the only operating blast furnace at the Romanian Liberty Galati plant. The main reasons for the closure at that time were severe weather conditions in the Black Sea and a sharp drop in water levels in the Danube. This affected the supply of sufficient raw materials for the safe operation of the unit. Sources suggested the restart would take place on October 24.
The company announced the blast furnace restart in November. The restart process began at the beginning of the month and the unit was expected to reach its design capacity within a few days, but full BF operation only began in mid-December. The factory planned to focus on the production of semi-finished products.
In January 2024, the unit was suspended again. The shutdown occurred during the Christmas holidays amid disruptions in the supply of raw materials. The company continued to produce hot-rolled coils from imported slabs and expects to resume full operations in the coming weeks.
