There have always been rumors that voestalpine is looking for a buyer for its sponge iron plant in Texas. The partner search process should be imminent.
In the fall of 2016, voestalpine opened the pig iron plant in Texas. The fact that the construction costs for the project had been massively exceeded only became known afterwards. At the last general meeting, there was talk of 1.7 billion euros in costs and accumulated losses. In the meantime, the system is supposed to run fairly trouble-free in normal operation, but this has not ended the search for a buyer.
Now the search for a partner, which ran under the code name “Treviso”, should be close to completion. Of the 28 interested parties, “two to three” were initially left, with whom intensive negotiations had been conducted until the end, it said on Sunday. In the evening, the group confirmed that voestalpine was “currently in negotiations to sell 80 percent of its shares”. And the negotiations are well advanced.
Observers speak of a poker, a result is expected in the coming days and weeks. All interested parties are internationally active industry companies across the board who themselves have a need for the hot briquetted iron (HBI; pig iron that is processed, note) produced in Corpus Christi, as insiders describe.
Whether and how much of the sponge iron will be delivered to Austria could be an exciting discussion just before the end. At least there are voices that see a reduction in dependency from Russia in the HBI from the USA.
The investment costs should not be included with the majority sale, but the HBI system should result in a book profit, according to the media report. After several value adjustments, Corpus Christi was last on the books with 448 million euros. In the 2020/21 financial year, 163 million euros were written off extraordinarily
Source: Nachrichten
