The numbers speak for themselves. In April, the monthly electricity consumption at the LME Beltrame Group plant in Trith-Saint-Léger (Nord), near Valenciennes, amounted to 2 million euros. In September, the bill doubled. “And it could even triple by the end of the year”, worried the co-managers of the northern steelmaker, Vincent Smeeckaert and Franck Dehon. The monthly gas bill went from 500,000 euros to 1 million euros.
With an annual electricity consumption of 375 gigawatt hours and natural gas of 260,000 megawatt hours to power its arc furnace, its continuous casting and its two rolling mills, the plant created nearly 150 years ago illustrates the consequences of the spectacular rise in energy costs in recent months in Europe. Among the victims of this surge in prices, steel producers, and especially those who use electric ovens, are among the most energy-intensive industries.
At LME Beltrame Group, where scrap metal is recycled to produce 13,000 tonnes of steel each week, the plant’s organization has been reviewed since mid-October. “We have to be very flexible and operate the plant when the price of energy is the most competitive”, explains the management. The production volume has therefore fallen by 20%, with occasional shutdowns during the day.
At full speed at night
From 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., Monday and Friday are devoted to the maintenance of the site, its upkeep and the training of some of the 500 employees to prevent them from partial unemployment. Conversely, the plant runs at full speed at night, when the cost of energy is lower. “As the prices change every hour, we have to be agile, but we have a fairly short-term vision”, explains industrial general manager Vincent Smeeckaert. At Nyrstar, in Auby (North), near Douai, where zinc is refined, the 300 employees will have to fluctuate production by up to 50%.
In Saint-Saulve, near Valenciennes, the 300 Ascoval employees continue to produce continuous casting rings, billets and blooms mainly for their main customer, SNCF, especially as order books have been full since the taken over in August by Saarstahl (SHS). “We will not stop production, especially if demand persists”, specifies the German group.
But how to operate with electricity bills multiplied by three and a cost price of products increased by 15% to 20%? The increases must be borne by the customers, explains the SHS group. For their part, the workers are “Hallucinated” to see that their “Green steel” thus loses in competitiveness. “We are walking on our heads: we are asked to make clean steel, but we multiply the cost of electricity by two or three! “ storm Nacim Bardi, CGT union representative in Ascoval.
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