The world’s second-largest steelmaker, ArcelorMittal, is the latest industrial company to announce a plant closure in Europe due to soaring gas and energy prices.
ArcelorMittal will shut one of its two blast furnaces at its steelworks site in Bremen, Germany, from the end of September until further notice, due to the “exorbitant rise in energy prices,” the company said in a statement on Friday.
The high energy prices are undermining the competitiveness of steel production and the company is taking this step in Germany because it cannot operate all plants economically, ArcelorMittal said.
The steel giant also cited weak market demand, a negative economic outlook, and persistently high CO2 costs in steel production as reasons for its decision.
“The high gas and electricity costs are putting a heavy strain on competitiveness. On top of that, from October onwards, there will be the German government's planned gas levy, which will further burden us,” ArcelorMittal Germany’s CEO Reiner Blaschek said.
Blaschek called on politicians to urgently take action to “get energy prices under control immediately”.
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