John Cockerill, formerly Cockerill Maintenance & Ingénierie (CMI), is a

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, and ...

group headquartered in

Seraing Seraing (; wa, Serè) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium. The municipality consists of the following districts: Boncelles, Jemeppe-sur-Meuse, Ougrée, and Seraing. With Liège, Herstal, Sai ...

, Belgium. It produces machinery for steel plants, industrial heat recovery equipment and boilers, as well as shunting locomotives and military equipment.

History

In 1817, an iron foundry was established in

by John Cockerill and his brother, Charles James Cockerill. As well as creating an iron works, John Cockerill also began machine-building activities, following in the footsteps of his father,

William Cockerill William Cockerill (1759–1832) was a British inventor, entrepreneur, and industrialist. Designing and producing machines for new industrial textile manufacturing, he is best known for having established a major manufacturing firm in what is now ...

, who had made his fortune constructing machines for the textile industry in the Liège region. In 1825, the enterprise became known as John Cockerill & Cie.John Cockerill et Cie
/ref> The company produced the primary industrial machinery of the day – steam engines, blast furnace blowers, etc. In 1835, the company produced the first Belgian steam locomotive, '' Le Belge'', beginning a tradition of building locomotives for the railways of Belgium. An association with military equipment also began early in the 19th century, building a battleship for the

United Kingdom of the Netherlands The United Kingdom of the Netherlands ( nl, Verenigd Koninkrijk der Nederlanden; french: Royaume uni des Pays-Bas) is the unofficial name given to the Kingdom of the Netherlands as it existed between 1815 and 1839. The United Netherlands was cr ...

navy in 1825. By 1981, the firm had become part of the financially troubled

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 Cocke ...

group. In 1982, Cockerill-Mechanique (with a capital of ~2 billion

Belgian franc The Belgian franc ( nl, Belgische frank, french: Franc belge, german: Belgischer Franken) was the currency of the Kingdom of Belgium from 1832 until 2002 when the Euro was introduced. It was subdivided into 100 subunits, each known as a in Dutch ...

s) became a 100% owned

subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company or daughter company is a company owned or controlled by another company, which is called the parent company or holding company. Two or more subsidiaries that either belong to the same parent company or having a s ...

of that group as Cockerill Mechanical Industries. The company was one of the more profitable parts of the group, and it was planned to sell the company as part of the dismantling of Cockerill-Sambre, but the plan was not carried out. The company remained a division of Cockerill-Sambre (and its successor

Usinor Usinor was a French steel making group formed in 1948. The group was merged with Sacilor in 1986, becoming Usinor-Sacilor and was privatised in 1995, and renamed Usinor in 1997. In 2001 it merged with Arbed (Luxembourg) and Aceralia (Spain) to for ...

) until 2002, when it was sold to private investors. In 2004, the company was renamed Cockerill Maintenance & Ingénierie (CMI), then it changed back to its original name John Cockerill in May 2019.

Activities and products

The company's primary business is in metal mechanical engineering with emphasis on machinery related to or using in steelworks; maintenance, refurbishment and repair of equipment is also part of the companies business. The industry sub-division manufactures equipment for steel coil treatment including pickling, annealing, hot dip and electro galvanising lines, rolling mills and reheating furnaces for the steel industry., as well as shunting locomotives. The energy sub-division products include

heat recovery steam generator A heat recovery steam generator (''HRSG'') is an energy recovery heat exchanger that recovers heat from a hot gas stream, such as a combustion turbine or other waste gas stream. It produces steam that can be used in a process (cogeneration) or u ...

and boilers. In the late 2000s the company developed high temperature solar receivers for solar power station, with the first installation in 2014 as part of the

Khi Solar One Khi Solar One (KSO) is a solar power tower solar thermal power plant, located in the Northern Cape Region of South Africa. Khi Solar One is 50 megawatts (MW), and is the first solar tower plant in Africa. It covers an area of . Abengoa cl ...

power station at

Upington Upington ( Nama: //Khara hais) is a town founded in 1873 and located in the Northern Cape province of South Africa, on the banks of the Orange River. The town was originally called Olijvenhoutsdrift ('Olive wood drift'), due to the abundance of ...

, South Africa. John Cockerill sold 33% of the world's hydrogen

high-pressure electrolysis High-pressure electrolysis (HPE) is the electrolysis of water by decomposition of water (H2O) into oxygen (O2) and hydrogen gas (H2) due to the passing of an electric current through the water. The difference with a standard proton exchange mem ...

in 2021. The defence sub-division's primary products are 90mm guns and turrets for light armoured vehicles.

Controversy

NGOs raised concerns about the validity of the licenses authorising the company to sell arms to Saudi Arabia, given the involvement of this country in a conflict with Yemen. A consortium of journalists said they found evidence that Saudi Arabia is using some of these weapons in this conflict.

References

External links

* {{authority control Manufacturing companies of Belgium Engineering companies of Belgium Rail vehicle manufacturers of Belgium Locomotive manufacturers of Belgium Belgian brands Cockerill Company (Belgium) Seraing