Steel Strip

ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steelmaker, is to offer voluntary redundancy to up to 9,000 employees, around 3% of its total workforce.
The ‘voluntary separation programme’ is part of the company’s aim to cut costs by $1bn (£648m;775bn euros) in response to falling global demand for steel.
The focus will be primarily on sales and administrative employees, [...]

Looking back through the various reports we have made on steel manufacturing cut backs, it’s easy to lose track.
Reuters have published a time-line of the announcements that you can find here 
Technorati Tags: Steel companies,steel cutbacks,steel production,reuters

 Meps are reporting falling steel prices around the world, with the US operating at 65% percent capacity and continuing high stock levels at Service centres.
In Canada producers are extending the annual winter shutdowns.
Prices continue to fall in China as demand in downstream markets collapse.
Demand in Japan and Korea continues to fall and prices deteriorate.
Eastern sales [...]

ThyssenKrupp, one of the world’s leading producers of stainless steel, will extend the Christmas holiday break at its largest stainless cold-rolled unit, Germany’s Nirosta, a spokesman said on Tuesday.
"Normally we have anywhere between 10 days to two weeks break, but this year it will be four weeks," he said.
The decision affects its German sites in [...]

Tata Steel has announced a donation to the University of Cambridge to endow a professorship in Metallurgy to support fundamental research into steel.
The university announced that the professorship is named Tata Steel Professor of Metallurgy.
The first steel expert to hold the post is Indian-origin Professor Harry Badeshia, a noted expert in physical steel [...]

excerpt from an article by Daniel Lovering
Just weeks after posting record profits, steel makers are facing a harsh new reality: dwindling orders, production cuts, layoffs. And tougher times lay ahead, analysts say.
The steel industry had been riding high earlier this year, as surging demand from China and other countries, coupled with soaring prices for materials [...]

An interesting article on Tata at the Business Times Online
Tata have grown massively in the last couple of years, including a couple of high profile acquisitions in Europe with Corus and Jaguar Landrover.The ferocity of the worldwide downturn in business has clearly hit them hard.
Excerpt
Few companies in India have been more rattled by the global [...]

As many as 2,444 employees at ArcelorMittal’s steel plant could be laid off indefinitely in January, the company said.
The company has notified the United Steelworkers and other stakeholders about the possibility of an "indefinite layoff" at the Porter County plant beginning in the second half of January, ArcelorMittal announced Friday.
The recent drop-off in global [...]

Swedish engineering group Sandvik said Thursday it planned to cut 1,040 jobs and reduce production over weakened demand mainly in the automotive and engineering industries.
The group has some 47,000 employees worldwide and operations in 130 countries.
Its core operations include tools for metal-working, machinery and equipment for rock excavation, as well as stainless and [...]

CORUS is to halt most production at its Llanwern plant until at least March next year.
It said production will be run down to about ten percent of its current capacity.
But it could not give a cast iron assurance when full production would return - adding that its aim of returning to full production [...]