Mittal posts biggest loss in Romania - 334 million euros

Steel plant ArcelorMittal Galati, owned by Indian billionaire Lakshmi MIttal, set a record hard to beat by any Romanian company, that is a 334 million-euro (1.4 billion RON) loss last year, accounting for 40% of the same year's business, 845.7 million euros, (3.58 billion RON).
This was caused by the over 50% business decline, given the slump in the sales of steel worldwide as a result of the crisis, and the collapse of the steel price. The company exports most of its output.
The steel mill's losses are the highest ever posted by a local company, and are worse even than the results before privatisation, when it was losing one million dollars a day and was regarded as a black hole in the economy. Mittal's attempt to slash costs by making more than 4,000 people redundant did not help stave off losses, either.
"Losses should not be a surprise to anybody, because in Galati they work 24 hours a day and whether there is production going or not, the furnaces are on and people are in the factory, which is why costs are high. When things go well, however, the plant makes 400-500 million dollars in annual profit," explained Petru Ianc, director with the Economy Ministry and steel industry expert.
The management in Galati represented by Thierry le Gall had not provided any comment on the results by edition close.
In 2008, when the market was still booming, the business of the plant in Galati came close to 2 billion euros, and profit stood at 165 million euros. Last year, no company among the top ten players in the steel industry of Romania posted profit. The four local plants controlled by Mittal recorded 424 million-euro losses together.