Outokumpu
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This article is about a company; for an identically named Finnish city, see Outokumpu, Finland.
| Outokumpu Oyj | |
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| Type of Company | Public |
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| Founded | 1932 |
| Headquarters | Espoo, Finland |
| Key people | Jukka Härmälä (Chairman of the board), Juha Rantanen (President and CEO) |
| Industry | Basic resources, technology |
| Products | Stainless steel and related technologies |
| Employees | 11,000 |
| Website | http://www.outokumpu.com/ |
Outokumpu is a group of companies headquartered in Espoo, Finland, aimed at stainless steel and technology. Outokumpu has three sites in the United Kingdom, in Sheffield, Stocksbridge and Blackburn. Worldwide the company has 10,800 employees in some 30 different countries. Until ca 2000 turnover of copper products was bigger than that of the rolled stainless steel products. Outokumpu was several decades known mainly as a mining and metallurgical company. Now, there is the last still operating mine in Kemi for ferrochrome ore. The copper branch was sold for major part in 2005. The zinc branch was merged with the Swedish company Boliden but later Outokumpu has sold all Boliden shares in 2005. The coldrolling mill in Sheffield was closed at the end of 2005 as one of the consequences of the company-wide fixed costs reduction by 10%. The meltingshop in Sheffield contiues producing material for long products.
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[edit] Avesta Works
Avesta has a long history in steelmaking, just like Sheffield in the UK. There is a melting shop, hot rolling for heavy plates, hot rolling for 2000 mm width coils by Steckel-mill and cold rolling mills.
Avesta has developed many special stainless steel grades, high-alloy austenitic and duplex grades, optimised for good formability, weldabilty and high corrosion resistance.
[edit] Tornio Works
The biggest production facilities are located in the integrated mills of Tornio Works, in a small town Tornio on the coast of Gulf of Bothnia. Tornio Works produces hot rolled and cold rolled coils and sheets cut from coil, with an annual output of one million tonnes. The main marketing area is EU. Up to 85 pct of the products are exported all around the world. Tornio site consists of ferrochromium smelting, two steelmeltingshops, hot rolling mill and two cold rolling mills. The steel works were built in 1975-1976. The first stainless cast was made in May 1976, week 19, thus it has got the heat number 61901.
[edit] UK Sites
In 1950 Firth Vickers and Samuel Fox set up a joint works for cold rolling stainless steel at Shepcote Lane, Sheffield (government restrictions prevented both firms importing the equipment from the USA). In 1967 the industry was nationalised, with the stainless steel operation of the business subsequently being branded as British Steel Stainless.
In 2005, it was announced that the cold-rolling and finishing units (Coil Products Sheffield) on Shepcote Lane were to close, with the loss of over 600 jobs. Production ceased in the first half of 2006. However the company still has operations in the UK including a melting shop, special strip cold rolling and finishing, bar rolling and UK distribution.
[edit] Merged Companies and Acquisitions
At the end of September 2001, Outokumpu Technology finalized the Lurgi Metallurgie acquisition. In 1992 British Steel Stainless merged with the Swedish firm Avesta (as in Avesta Municipality) to form Avesta Sheffield, and in 2001 merged with Outokumpu, making it the third largest stainless steel producing company in the world (after German TKN and multinational Arcelor). The new company was owned by Corus Group, institutional Swedish investors and the Finnish company Outokumpu. The new company was named AvestaPolarit, with headquarters in Stockholm. In 2004 Outokumpu bought the shares owned by Corus, so AvestaPolarit became a wholly owned subsidiary of the Outokumpu Group. AvestaPolarit was also removed from the stock exchanges in Helsinki and in Stockholm, since there is only one company named Outokumpu with its headquarters in Espoo.
In 2005 Outokumpu had a total turnover of €5.55 billion.
[edit] External links
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