January/February News in Briefs (2)

Agreement ends

Kobe Steel and its US subsidiary Midrex Technologies have terminated their Alliance Agreement with ZincOx Resources.

The groups were to collaborate on the process, equipment design and engineering for electric arc furnace dust recycling plans using the Fastmet and Fastmelt processes jointly owned by Kobe and Midrex.

Midrex also said it had terminated its license agreement with Zinc and Iron Recycling of Ohio, a subsidiary of ZincOx.

The agreement granted the ZincOx subsidiary the license to use technology related to the Fastmet process.

CR line comes on-stream

Tianjin Rolling-one’s CR line, with a designed capacity of 1Mt/y, has come on stream.

The company plans a total capacity of 3Mt/y, of which 1.1Mt will be for HDG coils, 400kt/y for colour coated coils and 1.5Mt/y for CR coil.

Tianjin Rolling-one Steel is a subsidiary of Tianjin Rolling-one Steel

Group which has 3Mt/y crude steel capacity and 5Mt/y of HR capacity.

Source China Metals e-mail [email protected]

Severstal profits

Russian steel producer Severstal reported a jump in quarterly profit, beating market expectations.

Severstal made a net profit of $388M between July and September, up from $37M in the same period in 2009.

Despite the rise in profits, Severstal's shares fell in both London and Moscow, as its US arm posted a loss. The loss resulted from a ‘challenging US steel market and rising raw materials costs’.

Severstal has said that restructuring its loss-making US assets was ‘the highest priority’ for the company.

Anshan plans takeover

China’s Anshan Steel Group plans to take over smaller rival Fujian Sangang Group in a move to speed up the domestic steel sector’s restructuring, Reuters reported, citing a filing to the exchange of Sangang's listed arm Sansteel Minguang.

China has been pushing for consolidation of the country’s fragmented steel sector, aiming to create three to five majors with greater competitiveness, it said. Anshan Steel received regulatory approval in late May to take over state-owned Panzhihua Steel in Sichuan.