Global Slag News

UK: Henrik Adam has been appointed as the chief executive officer (CEO) of Tata Steel Europe. He succeeds Hans Fischer, who has decided to step down from the post. Fischer will continue as a non-executive director and will continue to advise TV Narendran, CEO and managing director of Tata Steel. Adam will also join the board of Tata Steel Europe and report to TV Narendran.

Adam joined Tata Steel Europe in 2011 as Chief Commercial Officer. Prior to this he held a wide range of roles at ThyssenKrupp including CEO of ThyssenKrupp Electrical Steel. He has also been a director of EEF (now called Make UK), the UK’s manufacturers’ organisation, and chairman of WorldAutoSteel, the automotive group of the World Steel Association. Born in Essen Germany, Adam is a mechanical engineer who started his career as a scientist in vehicle safety technologies.

Netherlands: Ecocem Benelux has inaugurated a new 5000t export silo at its Moerdijk ground granulated blastfurnace slag (GGBS) plant. The new silo has been built at the waterfront in Moerdijk and rests on 65 piles sunk to a depth of up to 50m. The system operates via a screw extractor that conveys the GGBS to the centre of the bulk silo, where screws and a bucket elevator carry it to the new 150m³ day-silo. Both trucks and ships can be directly loaded from the silo: trucks on the weighing bridge situated under the silo and ships via a pneumatic transport installation with a maximum capacity of 250t/hr.

Ecocem Benelux is a subsidiary of Ireland’s Ecocem Materials. Ecocem Benelux supplies GGBS in bulk to the Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg (Benelux) market for both concrete and mortars. The facility also exports to the Swedish market. Since opening in 2002 the plant has doubled its production capacity to 0.65Mt/yr.

Australia: Researchers from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and CRC for Low Carbon Living (CRCLCL) are testing a geopolymer concrete made from fly ash and blast furnace slag on a road in Sydney. A 30m stretch of road is being trialled with 15m of traditional concrete and 15m of a geopolymer concrete. Nine sensors have been positioned under the concrete to monitor and compare how the geopolymer concrete performs. The results from the trial will be used to create the first set of industry guidelines for geopolymer concrete.

“While we’ll monitor the road performance for up to five years, a lot of the data collected in the first three to 12 months of this world-first trial will be used to confirm our models and strengthen our predictions,” said Professor Stephen Foster, Head of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UNSW and the CRCLCL project lead.

Kazakhstan: Technogran Aktobe plans to build a cast iron plant in Mangistau region at a cost of US$200m. The plant will produce 250,000t/yr of cast iron and 250,000t/yr of granulated slag, according to Interfax. Slag from the plant will be used for cement production and road construction. These products will be exported to Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

Belgium: The European Commission (EC) has blocked the creation of a joint venture between Tata Steel and ThyssenKrupp. It said that the merger would have reduced competition and increased prices for different types of steel. It added that the parties did not offer adequate remedies to address these concerns.

“Steel is a crucial input for many things we use in our everyday life, such as canned food and cars. Millions of people in Europe work in these sectors and companies depend on competitive steel prices to sell on a global level. Without remedies addressing our serious competition concerns, the merger between Tata Steel and ThyssenKrupp would have resulted in higher prices. So we prohibited the merger to avoid serious harm to European industrial customers and consumers,” said Commissioner Margrethe Vestager.

The proposed joint venture would have combined the flat carbon steel and electrical steel activities of ThyssenKrupp and Tata Steel in the European Economic Area (EEA). ThyssenKrupp is the second largest producer of flat carbon steel in the EEA while Tata Steel is the third largest. Both companies are significant producers of metallic coated and laminated steel for packaging applications and of galvanised flat carbon steel for the automotive industry.