2023-10-31 05:15:00
Unesid, the Spanish steel industry association, of which ArcelorMittal and 45 other companies in the sector are part, yesterday urged the Government to negotiate “quickly” with the European Commission to extend the execution period of the projects subsidized under the Mechanism. Recovery and Resilience. In the opinion of the general director of Unesid, Andres Barcelothe companies They will face “enormous difficulty” to conclude the investments within the established period. “It seems that they have forgotten about the delays and other obstacles in the supply chain (engineering and capital goods), since, although the extension of the execution deadlines is contemplated, the deadline to make the investment ( March 31, 2026) remains an insurmountable barrier today,” he said.
The steel employers’ association specifically refers to the first line of action of the PERTE (Strategic Project for Recovery and Economic Transformation) of Decarbonization, which, for an amount of 1,000 million in public aid from the European Next Generation funds, The Ministry of Industry has just brought it to public hearing.
However, the problem of the tight deadlines for the execution of energy transition projects can also be extrapolated to the second line of PERTE, the one already approved for 450 million for the ArcelorMittal project to replace coal with green hydrogen in its Gijón header by replacing one of the two Veriña blast furnaces with a direct reduction furnace (DRI). ArcelorMittal has not yet definitively approved this investment (the largest of its decarbonization plan) because it is trying to guarantee acceptable execution times and viable energy prices..
Unesid urges the Ministry of Industry to “negotiate quickly with the European Commission” so that the community executive “allows execution in accordance with the industrial and regulatory reality.” The steel employers’ association maintains that the deadlines for both the public consultation and the execution of the projects are excessively short” and regrets “the tremendous bureaucratic burden” entailed by the new call for the new PERTE line.
Unesid therefore shows its “concern” about “the lack of alignment of PERTE aid with the needs of the industry” and announces that it will argue.
In addition to the deadlines that are too tight, the steel association objects that the regulatory bases of the new 1,000 million line allow projects to be competed with “a reduced minimum budget” and through “non-competitive competition”, which allows the approval of customized projects. that they be presented if they meet the standards and without waiting for the evaluation of all of them together to choose the best.
Unesid, which brings together large companies, says that “this artificial distribution” can generate “an avalanche of presentations and approvals” and It would mean “giving a little to many instead of selecting projects with transformative potential” and “where it is most needed, such as in sectors exposed to strong international competition and relocation.”
In PERTE’s report, Industria alleges the “difficulty of its public call in competitive competition” because “the aid instrument is aimed at the industrial manufacturing sector as a whole, made up of a multitude of different industrial subsectors, each of which has certain characteristics. very disparate in terms of types and intensity of emissions”, company sizes, technologies they require, etc… and that this heterogeneity, he maintains, makes comparison difficult.
ArcelorMittal begins to negotiate the Asturias agreement and tries to stop the CC OO strike
The management of ArcelorMittal in Asturias and the union representation began to negotiate yesterday the collective agreement for 2022-2025 with the transfer to the local level of the definitive texts of the VIII Framework Agreement, signed on Friday by UGT, CC OO and USO for the field of Asturias, Sagunto (Valencian Community), Etxebarri (Vizcaya) and Lesaka-Legasa (Navarra). Yesterday, the company addressed the procedure to incorporate individual contract personnel into the agreement, the regulation of the criteria for enjoying the 16 hours of free disposal for personal matters for the personnel assigned to the system of five teams in three shifts, as well as the payment of 0.75% variable for the years 2023, 2024 and 2025, the summer day and other aspects. UGT demanded agility in collective bargaining. In turn, the company was negotiating last night at SASEC with CC OO to try to avoid the strike called by this union to demand promptness in the agreement. The strikes are scheduled to begin on Saturday. Yesterday minimum services were also negotiated.
The steel leader will leave Kazakhstan with the nationalization of his interests in the country
ArcelorMittal, world steel leader, and the Government of Kazakhstan have reached an agreement in principle for the nationalization of the multinational’s interests and businesses in the country. The operation came to light after the fire broke out on Saturday in a mine in Kazakhstan owned by the steel company that caused the death of at least 45 workers. The Bloomberg agency linked the Kazakh Government’s initiative to several accidents that occurred at company facilities. However, the multinational assured that “negotiations to transfer ownership of ArcelorMittal Temirtau back to the Government” began “months ago” and that “last week”, before Saturday’s accident, “an agreement in principle” was signed. “ArcelorMittal is committed,” he said, “to completing this transaction as soon as possible.” The company was established in Kazakhstan in the 90s and now has iron and coal mines and a steel factory in the country. After the operation became known, ArcelorMittal shares fell 3.98% on the Madrid Stock Exchange.
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