The UK’s steel industry has been in decline for decades. Companies that held out are now under more pressure from record Chinese exports, a stronger pound and weaker demand.
The squeeze is forcing more plants to close or reduce jobs. Tata Steel Ltd, the UK’s biggest producer, yesterday announced 1,200 job cuts and said it plans to stop producing steel plate at plants.
On Monday, 16 companies that comprise Caparo Industries PLC, owned by Swraj Paul, a member of the UK’s House of Lords, were placed into administration.
The steel industry has been roiled by the slowest economic growth since 1990 in China, the biggest consumer.
European mills are also battling a flood of cheap exports from the Asian nation, producer of about half of the world’s steel, as its own producers ship cheap metal overseas.
In the UK, the pound’s 19 percent advance against the euro since early 2013 has made steelmakers less competitive.
“The UK steel industry is struggling for survival in the face of extremely challenging market conditions,” Karl Koehler, chief executive officer of Tata Steel’s European operations, said in a statement yesterday. “Inaction threatens the future of the entire European steel industry.”
Tata said it would stop production of steel plates at plants in Scunthorpe, England, and Scotland due to a flood of cheap imports from China.
The company called on the European Commission to tackle what it called unfairly-traded imports.
The collapse of Caparo’s steel business follows the closure of the the Redcar plant last week after the UK’s Insolvency Service failed to find a buyer.
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, the administrator for Caparo, said it is assessing opportunities to restructure or sell the businesses and their assets.
Global steel demand would contract by 1.7 percent to 1.51 billion tonnes this year, the World Steel Association said last week, reversing an April forecast for a 0.5 percent increase. Consumption in China is to decline 3.5 percent this year to 685.9 million tonnes and slide a further 2 percent next year, it added.
With production slowing less than demand, mills are churning the surplus onto global markets, pushing down prices and spurring trade tensions from Asia to the US.
POSCO, South Korea’s biggest steelmaker, yesterday reported the largest quarterly loss in at least five years amid losses on foreign exchange and mining assets, a lawsuit settlement, and as a deluge of Chinese exports pushed down world prices.
The net loss, excluding minority interests, was 534.2 billion won (US$474 million) in the three months ending last month, from a 237.8 billion won profit a year earlier, the company said. That compares with an expected loss of 156 billion won, according to the average of 13 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
The company was the world’s fifth-biggest producer last year, with output of 41.4 million tonnes, according to the World Steel Association.
That compares with 49.3 million tonnes for Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp, and 98.1 million tonnes for ArcelorMittal SA.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”