According to the vice-president of the government, Willie Borsus, the Walloon government of Belgium is providing a loan to Liberty Steel to enable the company to maintain the metallurgical production in Liege-Dudelange until a reliable buyer for the plant is found.
“The goal of the region is to be able to explore all the possibilities that allow one or more buyers to come forward on a credible industrial project to offer the renewal of LLD [Liberty Liege-Dudelange],” said Borsus.
Investment company Sogepa in Wallonia will provide a loan on "strict conditions", including the organization of the sale.
Market participants were told that the production facility in Liege will be split into two companies, with the two hot-dip galvanizing (HDG) lines at Flemalle becoming one unit, and the Tilleur packaging, pickling and cold-rolled lines will be merged into another.
The aggregate capacity of the enterprises in Liege-Dudelange and Luxembourg is 1.6 million tons of coated steel, 300 thousand tons of commercial cold-rolled steel and 200 thousand tons of sheet metal per year. They were acquired by the British in 2019 from ArcelorMittal, which then had to sell part of its European assets at the request of the antitrust authorities in order to obtain the right to purchase the Italian steel mill Ilva.
