B. Acería Compacta de Bizcaia SA and Aceralia Corporación Siderúrgica SA. Project: development of carbon and micro-alloyed steels through thin slab casting

Although the sale of Duferco Clabecq’s continuous casting was carried out as part of the contributions made by the two private partners of Carsid, that sale was justified by the fact that Carsid had to produce for the Duferco group slabs of a specific size which necessitated the purchase of a continuous casting plant that met the criteria of the plant situated at Clabecq.

Following the announcement by the Chairman of the Usinor Sacilor group in February 2001 that he intended to close down Cockerill Sambre’s hot-rolling line in Charleroi, talks were entered into between Usinor-Cockerill Sambre, the Duferco group and Sogepa primarily with a view to setting up a joint venture to produce slabs based on Cockerill Sambre’s existing mill in Charleroi together with the plant owned by Duferco Clabecq (continuous casting) (8).

Investments in this area are intended more to improve technical processes and product quality (such as thin slab casting) than to boost the share of continuous-cast steel.

- The second concerns the production of alloy steel thin slabs (stainless, carbon, electrical steels) by means of innovative machine and process in continuous casting and - the third project relates to a new manufacturing process for the production of low thickness oriented grain steel sheets for energy saving.

It must also agree not to build a second continuous casting facility for slabs for at least five years from the date of closure of the slab mill; (d) ProfilArbed SA agrees by the end of 1995 at the latest, pursuant to the abovementioned Decision, to replace its L-D steel melting shop at Esch-Belval with an electric melting shop with an MPP not exceeding 1 500 kt/year; (e) until output at rolling mill IX at Esch-Belvan begins, Klöckner Stahl agrees to limit production of hot-rolled coil at the Bremen hot strip mill to 2 640 kt/year and not to exceed 3 360 kt/year, including rolling to order; (f) Klöckner Stahl undertak ...[+++]es not to invest, save by prior agreement with the Commission, in maintenance or other plant, in order to maintain the bottleneck identified in the SNV expert report ("Einschleusungslogistik für die Warmbreitbankstrasse der Hütte Bremen, 8.3.1984, Studiengesellschaft Nahverkehr mbH) which limits the quantity of slabs coming from outside for processing to 1 020 kt/year; (g) Klöckner Stahl GmbH cuts its MPP of cold-rolled strip and sheet products by 500 kt/year by reducing MPP at its Bremen plant from 1500 to 1000 kt/year as follows: 300 kt/year before the end of June 1996 200 kt/year before the end of June 1998.