Column: In search of the elusive green nickel premium
Just about every Western producer will tell you metal produced to higher environmental and social standards should command a premium.
World’s largest steel producer ArcelorMittal (NYSE:MT) is selling two of its facilities in the US to an affiliate of the asset management firm Black Diamond Capital Management for an undisclosed sum.
The deal includes offloading the Lousiana-based LaPlace steel facility, along with a rolling mill in Tennessee, which produces long steel products such as beams, angles, flats, channels and billets.
It also includes the Vinton facility, located in El Paso, Texas which produces rebar and grinding media, also long steel products.
The deal should help the steel maker reduce debt, which stood at almost $16 billion for the quarter ended Dec. 2015.
The transaction, subject to certain conditions and forecast to close in April, aims to help the Luxembourg-based steel maker to reduce its debt that stood at almost $16 billion for the quarter ended December 2015.
Amid the sustained commodities rout that has hit the global mining industry in the past year, ArcelorMittal reported a $7.9bn net loss for 2015 last month after recording large write-downs on its iron ore mining and steelmaking businesses.
Shares in the company have dropped more than 50% since January last year, when a global glut began making steel cheaper than at any other point in the past decade.
The price slump has weighed heavily on earnings at most major producers, including US Steel and Posco of South Korea. In the UK, the situation has triggered an existential crisis in the industry that has claimed thousands of jobs and cast doubt over its future.
Comments
Altaf
At times when supply exceeds demand, the best way to survive for a supplier is to have a tie up with end user. Look at oil markets. ME Countries are investing in refineries in Asia.
In 2005, the company I was working in Middle East approached Mittal’s SA Plant with a proposal to set up a green pipe (a kind of pipe which goes into Oil and Gas drilling) JV project in ME.
The idea was Mittals will supply the green pipe, our company does the pipe ends and the product has the potential to capture major part of ME market. The value addition done to the green pipe in ME will give the JV an edge over the import of finished product coming from far away places like Brazil.
But back in 2005, they were on cloud 9. They wont look at nothing less than billions.
10 years down the line every one moved on. The pragmatic MD of my ex company moved on to other bigger projects, My ex company is still growing organically. I too moved on to other projects but the memories of our efforts still linger in mind. Mittals also moved on to India with proposal to set up mega 10-12 million ton integrated steel plants, got stuck up in red tape, their net worth falling for the last two years.