Salzgitter sees wider loss in 2013

Germany-based steelmaker Salzgitter Group has announced its financial results for 2013, stating that the structural crisis prevailing in the European steel industry presented Salzgitter with special challenges in the financial year elapsed. Increasingly fierce price-led competition in the European market, combined with the drastic capacity underutilization of the large-diameter tubes business, caused a significant impact on earnings.
 
In 2013, Salzgitter recorded a net loss of €489.6 million, compared to a net loss of €99.8 million in 2012, while the company's sales revenues amounted to €9.24 billion, down 11 percent year on year owing to lower average selling prices for many steel products and reduced shipment volumes in the tubes and trading divisions.
  
According to Salzgitter, taking the persistently weak market into account, the production capacity of the Steel Division's Peiner Träger GmbH was scaled back to an annual one million mt of crude and rolled steel respectively. Despite satisfactory capacity utilization, the strip steel and plate product segments were also impacted by fierce competitive pressure.