The EU has approved the sale of Hungarian steel mill Dunaferr to UK-listed Liberty Steel, paving the way for the rescue of the plant, Hungary's Ministry of Economic Development said on October 3.
“With this approval, the final hurdle to a successful sale and Dunaferr's future has been eliminated,” Gergely Fabian, Minister of State for Industrial Policy and Technology, said in a statement on the government website.
A Liberty Steel spokesman separately confirmed on October 4 that the EU had given “regulatory approval” for the purchase Dunaferr steelworks. “We are now working at a pace to complete the transaction as quickly as possible,” a spokesman for S&P Global Commodity Insights said.
The plant is capable of producing 1.2 million tons of pig iron per year and 1.6 million tons of crude steel per year.
The EU has approved Liberty Steel's acquisition of Dunaferr under a "simplified merger control procedure" in which the company submitted a winning bid for 55 million euros ($58 million), according to the Ministry of Economic Development. .
“Dunaferr became insolvent due to the irresponsibility of its previous foreign management and misguided sanctions,” Fabian said, adding that the plant's operations had become impossible, putting the jobs of thousands of workers at risk as a result. Although Dunaferr has "broken out" of last year's seemingly hopeless situation, much remains to be done to ensure its continuation and the Ministry of Economic Development will continue to play an active role in the future of the company, a key Hungarian economic enterprise. player, according to Fabian.
EU approval for the sale of Dunaferr to Libery Steel follows a protest in July from Ukrainian iron ore mining and steel company Metinvest, which also competed for Dunaferr but was not allowed into the final round of bidding, asking EU competition authorities to investigate the tender, which it said did not meet transparency criteria.
In August, Liberty Steel, management and the liquidator of Dunaferr agreed to cease smelting operations at the plant by shutting down the only operating blast furnace [ of the two established there] for at least three months. A weak European market, large volumes of foreign imports, the cost of meeting EU carbon emissions standards and preparations for a green transformation were cited as factors influencing the suspension of steel production at the plant.
Liberty Steel signed a memorandum in September an understanding with the Hungarian government and Chinese engineering company CISDI to develop a plan to reduce CO2 emissions at the Scope 1 plant by potentially 80%. This can be achieved by refurbishment of currently existing coal plants. plant based on electric arc technology.
In July 2022, Liberty Steel informed the market of a transition to “green” production at its Liberty Galati plant in Romania, the largest in that country and one of the largest in Eastern Europe. The company was then supposed to select a hybrid electric arc furnace supplier for Galati to produce mild steel, but the tender was never completed. Around the same time, Liberty signed a contract with Italian equipment manufacturer Danieli to supply two hybrid EDFs to its other steel plants in Eastern Europe, in Ostrava, Czech Republic.
“We have made good progress in transforming Ostrava GREENSTEL: underway development of a major energy bridge, freeing up space for a control center, acquiring land for a planned new high-speed transmission line and a feasibility study for a new 150 MW solar power plant. the truss at the plant has already been completed,” a Liberty Steel spokesman said.
