(AOF) – Vallourec announces the appointment of Pierre d’Archemont as Director South America. He will take office on July 14, 2022 and will join the Executive Committee. “Pierre will bring us all his experience of managing companies in Brazil and South America in demanding industries such as the automotive industry,” said Philippe Guillemot, Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer of Vallourec.
Pierre d’Archemont began his career in 1985 at Schneider Electric as Sales and Marketing Manager. He joined Alcatel in 1992 where he held various management positions. In 1995, he joined the Valeo group and took over the management of the Brazil and Argentina subsidiary. In 2008, he took over the management of the Atmosfera group in the hotel, hospital and industrial sector, which he then sold to a major player in the sector. In 2011, Pierre d’Archemont took over the general management of Brazil and Argentina of the Plastic Omnium group where he built a new team and new processes to improve quality and service in Brazil and Argentina, recovering competitiveness and customer confidence. Since 2014, he was Regional VP Brazil and Argentina in charge of the operational and financial turnaround of Visteon.
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Key points
– Co-world leader, with Tenaris, in the seamless steel tubes market (12% market share) and world leader in premium tubular solutions;
– Turnover of €3.4 billion, with a strong position in the oil-gas sector (54%), ahead of industry, which is growing strongly (36%), petrochemicals (6%) and electrical energy ;
– New economic model in 3 pillars: reduction of production capacities in Europe, strengthening of the presence in the 2 Americas, the Middle East and South-East Asia, transformation plan towards better competitiveness;
– Non-operable capital due to the presence of the BPI (2%), the Apollo funds being the 1st shareholders with 20% of the shares and Edouard Guinotte, managing director, chairing the board of 9 directors;
– Balance sheet cleaned up by the capital increase of June 2021 with equity of €1.8 billion and cash of €1.1 billion against €958 million in net debt but negative self-financing of €284 million.
Challenges
– “Acceleration” strategy for profitable growth through industrial excellence and more efficient support functions with a target of gross savings of €200 million over 2021-22;
– Innovation strategy supported by 6 R&D centers aiming to:
– capitalize on the technological advantage (VAM® connections) and the digital solutions distributed to customers via the Smartengo Vallourec.smart platform,
– meet the challenges of lightness in industry, efficiency of power plants in electrical energy and complexity of transport and storage in oil and gas
– support employees’ proposals via the Open Innovatin challenges and the Booster;
– Environmental strategy in the A list of the CDP and validated by the SBTi in 2 parts:
– offer of energy transition solutions for geothermal energy, offshore wind power, carbon capture & storage and hydrogen with the objective of “a significant increase in turnover over 2020-30”,;
– reduced impact: 40% renewable energy, 96% recycled waste, 43% recycled steel;
– Productive quality of the 3 major industrial sites: Youngstone in the United States, hence a competitive advantage for the group favored by the increase in customs duties on steel, VSB in Brazil, and Tianda in China;
– Success of Vallourec Umbilicals in charge of tubes for offshore umbilicals;
– Deployment of the Brazilian and Chinese competitive routes with an expected tube production of 500kt in 2024 against 300kt in 2019.
An ecological transition that drives metal prices
The ecological transition is driving demand and driving up prices. Thus lithium prices jumped 100% last year, supported by sales of electric cars. The needs for metals such as aluminum, copper, graphite, or nickel should soar by 2050. The war in Ukraine has reinforced the rise in prices because Russia is a major producer of mineral raw materials , in particular aluminium, palladium, nickel and titanium. The International Energy Agency (IEA) recently warned of the risk of a shortage of several metals necessary for the energy transition. Europe has mobilized on strategic metals with the aim of strengthening its sovereignty.