Gerdau starts production at new steel meltshop

2017-07-12

The equipment, which consists of an electric arc furnace, a ladle furnace, a three-strand conticaster, material handling system, cranes and fume and water treatment plants, was supplied by Italian industrial group Danieli.

Gerdau announced last week that it has halted operations of its long product rolling mills at its Divinopolis plant in the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil. The decision was attributed to the current economic conditions in the country and subdued demand from the construction industry.

The Brazilian construction industry's gross domestic product (GDP) contracted by 5.3 percent on the year in 2016, according to the Sao Paulo construction union SindusCon. This was the third year of consecutive decline in the sector, which uses a large amount of long products. The union estimates that in 2017, GDP from construction will grow by 0.5 percent, but it fell by 6.3 percent on the year in the first quarter.

Crude steel production in Argentina rose by 4 percent on the year in May, having increased by nearly 6 percent in the first quarter to 1 million tons, according to trade association Acero Argentina, which attributed the rise to strong demand from the construction industry.