Rescue efforts are under way at ArcelorMittal South Africa's Vanderbijlpark Works to find three employees missing after an accident, the steelmaker said on Wednesday.
German conglomerate Thyssenkrupp ended talks to sell its steel division to Britain's Liberty Steel due to differences over value, the latest setback in efforts to consolidate the European sector.
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LONDON, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Demand for steel in the European Union and Britain fell by 11.6% year on year in the third quarter of 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic hit industrial activity but it is expected to bounce back this year, industry group Eurofer said on Wednesday.
“2020 is likely to be one of the worst years on record, even if we will see positive figures in the fourth quarter,” said Eurofer Director General Axel Eggert.
The third quarter decline in apparent steel consumption for the 27 EU members plus Britain to 32.8 million tonnes was an improvement on the tumble of 25% in the second quarter, the European Steel Association said in a statement.
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CIUDAD GUAYANA, Venezuela, Feb 10 (Reuters) - When Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro last week announced a second shipment of oxygen to help neighboring Brazil treat COVID-19 patients, he credited the “Venezuelan working class” at the state-owned Sidor steel plant for the gesture of solidarity.
Maduro has used the dispatches to Brazil’s northern Amazonas state - where hospitals last month ran out of oxygen due to a severe outbreak - to contrast what he calls the benefits of Venezuela’s socialist model with the track record of Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, a fierce Maduro critic.
But Maduro left out the reason Sidor had oxygen to spare: steel production, which uses the oxygen as an input, has all but halted at the Puerto Ordaz plant following years of steady output declines since the company was nationalized in 2008 by the late former President Hugo Chavez, Maduro’s predecessor and mentor.