ArcelorMittal Ghent is a Belgian steelworks situated in
Ghent
Ghent ( nl, Gent ; french: Gand ; traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded i ...
near
Zelzate
Zelzate () is a municipality located in the Belgian province of East Flanders. The municipality only comprises the town of Zelzate proper. In 2021, Zelzate had a total population of 13,124. The total area is 13.71 km2.
Zelzate is divided in ...
,
Flanders
Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to cultu ...
. It was founded in 1962 by
ARBED
The Aciéries Réunies de Burbach-Eich-Dudelange ( French; literally "United Steelworks of Burbach-Eich-Dudelange"), better known by its acronym ARBED, was a major Luxembourg-based steel and iron producing company. Created in 1911 after the me ...
as Sidmar; the first maritime steel producer in Belgium.
History
Background
Traditionally the steelworks of Belgium had been concentrated in the southern half of the country, in
Wallonia
Wallonia (; french: Wallonie ), or ; nl, Wallonië ; wa, Waloneye or officially the Walloon Region (french: link=no, Région wallonne),; nl, link=no, Waals gewest; wa, link=no, Redjon walone is one of the three regions of Belgium—alo ...
, close to the historic coal mining areas at the edge of the
Rhenish Massif; which in part defined the area that came to be known as the
Sillon industriel, including
Liège Province
Liège (; wa, Lîdje ; nl, Luik ; german: Lüttich ) is the easternmost province of the Wallonia region of Belgium.
Liège Province is the only Belgian province that has borders with three countries. It borders (clockwise from the north) the Du ...
and
Hainaut Province.
In the 1920s the Luxembourg-based steel company
ARBED
The Aciéries Réunies de Burbach-Eich-Dudelange ( French; literally "United Steelworks of Burbach-Eich-Dudelange"), better known by its acronym ARBED, was a major Luxembourg-based steel and iron producing company. Created in 1911 after the me ...
began buying land next to the
Ghent–Terneuzen Canal
The Ghent–Terneuzen Canal (Dutch: Kanaal van Gent naar Terneuzen), also known as the "Sea Canal" (Zeekanaal) is a canal linking Ghent in Belgium to the port of Terneuzen on the Westerschelde (Scheldt) Estuary in the Netherlands, thereby providin ...
, by 1932 the company had acquired . Economic depression in the 1930s, the second world war and its aftermath prevented plans for a new steel plant;.
however by the 1950s the economic conditions had become favourable again, and the company began exploring the possibility of a plants' construction.
At the beginning of the 1960s preliminary work began towards the construction of a new plant; the canal was to be dredged to enable
Panamax size ships to use the canal, Arbed's land holding increased to , and on 27 April 1962 the
European Coal and Steel Community approved the plants construction.
The company ''Siderurgie Maritime NV'' (Sidmar) was formed on 10 July 1962,
with a capital of 4.5billion
Belgian franc, of which 2bn came from Arbed, as well as 1bn from
Cockerill-Sambre
Cockerill-Sambre was a group of Belgian steel manufacturers headquartered in Seraing, on the river Meuse, and in Charleroi, on the river Sambre. The Cockerill-Sambre group was formed in 1981 by the merger of two Belgian steel groups – SA Cock ...
.
Schneider, the
Société Générale de Belgique
The ' ( nl, Generale Maatschappij van België; literally "General Company of Belgium") was a large Belgian bank and later holdings company which existed between 1822 and 2003.
The ''Société générale'' was originally founded as an investm ...
, ''Compagnie Belge de Participations'' (COBEPA) and ''Compagnie Financière et Industrielle'' (COFININDUS) also backed the scheme, and loans were got from state banks.
Amongst the steelworkers of the Walloon region the development was not so well received; in May 1960 union leader André Renaud declared it to be:
La guillotine de la Wallonie.
Sidmar
Construction began in 1964, with a cold rolling mill completed in March 1966, and a hot rolling operational by the end of that year, the first blast furnace in 1967 and a second in 1968. Expansion continued in the early 1970s with a coking factory and second cold rolling mill.
The
1973–75 recession caused a
crisis in the global steel market in the mid-1970s. Though the company fared better than the southern Belgian steel producers, investors other than Arbed disposed of their shares; Cockerill sold its 21.9 share to Arbed in 1975 due to its own financial problems, giving Arbed, which had previously increased its holding to 62.2% by 1973 a large majority shareholding of over 80%.
By the beginning of the 1980s some re-investment and expansion started again; a continuous rolling mill in 1981, as well as acquiring stakes in
ALZ, and
Klöckner Stahl. In 1989 Sidmar's steel capacity represented 30% of total Belgian steel production. In 1994 Sidmar acquired majority share ownership of Stahlwerke Bremen (formerly Klöckner Stahl) from
Klöckner.
Further investment in the 1990s and 2000s gave the plant
galvanising facilities (through a joint venture ''Galtec'' with Dutch steelmaker
Hoogovens
Koninklijke Hoogovens known as Koninklijke Nederlandse Hoogovens en Staalfabrieken (KNHS) until 1996 or informally Hoogovens. was a Dutch steel producer founded in 1918. Since 2010, the plant is named Tata Steel IJmuiden.
The IJmuiden steelwor ...
opened 1998, and renamed ''Sidgal'' in 2002, followed by two more lines ''Sidgal 2'' and ''Sidgal 3'' in 2000.) and later the ability to
continuous cast slab steel, as well as blast furnace expansion.
In 2002, as part of
Arbed
The Aciéries Réunies de Burbach-Eich-Dudelange ( French; literally "United Steelworks of Burbach-Eich-Dudelange"), better known by its acronym ARBED, was a major Luxembourg-based steel and iron producing company. Created in 1911 after the me ...
the company became part of
Arcelor
Arcelor S.A. was the world's largest steel producer in terms of turnover and the second largest in terms of steel output, with a turnover of €30.2 billion and shipments of 45 million metric tons of steel in 2004. The company was created in 2002 ...
, and was renamed Arcelor Ghent in 2006.
ArcelorMittal Ghent
Under ArcelorMittal ownership production continued, as ArcelorMittal Ghent.
The company produces ~5million tonnes pa of flat steel, with automotive manufacturers being a major source of custom. Flat steel is produced as hot or electrolytically galvanised, and plastic coated steel. The plant produces steel from ore, and has coking plants,
Sinter Plants (blast furnace feedstock production), blast furnaces of total capacity over 4million tonnes pa, and hot and cold rolling facilities.
References
Sources
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External links
Website of ArcelorMittal Ghent* Images:
* Images:
* Images: {{cite web, url=http://viktormacha.com/galerie/sidmar-gent-265/, title=ARCELORMITTAL GENT, work=www.viktormacha.com, language=czech, english, author=Viktor Macha
ArcelorMittal
Steel companies of Belgium
Companies based in East Flanders