Steelmaker ArcelorMittal has been boosting flat steel exports at its Tubarao mill, in the state of Espirito Santo, as demand from clients in Asia and North America increases, a high-level executive told reporters in the sidelines of the Brazil Steel Congress, which was held in the city of Sao Paulo from July 12-14.
According to Benjamin Baptista, president at ArcelorMittal Brazil, the company’s Tubarao mill is currently operating at full capacity and should end the year with a 7 million mt production volume.
“Today, we’re exporting more than 50pct [of our flat steel] production, especially slab,” the senior executive told reporters.
“When we brought back last year the blast furnace number 3, we’ve added a 2.5 million-production volume that could be exported. There’s no domestic market for slab. All slab production is exported,” Baptista said.
Baptista, who’s also the president of the board of directors of the Brazil Steel Institute (IABr), said several times during the event that exports are one of the few options Brazilian producers have to fight a crisis that has affected the nation’s steel segment.
“Everyone is exporting,” he said.
“Only those who have [competitive] costs can continue in the global [export] market. Our costs are low because of the currency, because of the production scales, because of the fall in the price of raw materials, and because of our operational efficiency,” Baptista reinforced when explaining Arcelor’s differentiated strategy to increase exports.