Here you will find our press releases. Find out about the latest projects, orders, cooperations and other information about voestalpine.
Aerospace is a key strategic growth area for voestalpine, and is therefore a high priority in the coming years. Over the medium term the company expects to increase Group revenue in this technologically challenging customer segment from its current level of EUR 300 million to around EUR 500 million. In the next two years voestalpine will invest over EUR 40 million in a new high-tech, high-speed forging line at Group company Böhler Edelstahl GmbH & Co KG in Kapfenberg in order to literally give additional thrust to this growth. The state-of-the-art facility is scheduled to go into operation as early as in 2018, and will primarily be used to manufacture forgings as pre-materials for extremely high load-bearing aircraft components, such as engine parts, or as workpieces for sophisticated products used in the oil & gas industry.
voestalpine as a technology partner to the automotive industry enters the next stage of its internationalization with continued expansion in the NAFTA region, as well as in Europe and Asia. The deciding factor was an order worth almost USD 600 million in the automotive sector which the Group has recently signed with a premium manufacturer. Over EUR 30 million will now be invested in the construction and extension of sites in Mexico, Germany, Romania, and China in order to fulfil this order, leading to the creation of 165 new jobs. The majority of the investment volume is allocated to Mexico’s booming automotive market where a new components manufacturing plant will be built in Aguascalientes. The automotive parts produced at the new and expanded voestalpine sites in future will be used in the construction of a total of more than a million cars.
The voestalpine group increased its earnings significantly in the second quarter of 2016/17 compared to the first quarter (EBITDA +11.1%, EBIT +20.1%). The main factor was the performance of the Steel Division, which markedly boosted its earnings in the past months due to price increases.
With the completion of the direct reduction plant in Corpus Christi, Texas, the voestalpine Group has set a further milestone in implementing its international growth strategy: today, after around two-and-a-half years of construction, the world’s largest and most state-of-the-art plant of its type was officially opened. At EUR 550 million (USD 740 million), the plant is the largest investment ever made in the US by an Austrian company. Each year it will produce two million tonnes of high-quality HBI (Hot Briquetted Iron, or sponge iron), a sophisticated pre-material used in steel production. The plant is already regarded as an environmental benchmark and is an important first step on voestalpine’s path of reducing CO2 emissions in steel production.
As the global market leader for complete turnout systems and European market leader for high-quality rails, voestalpine is continuously recording increasing order volumes for international railway infrastructure projects. The Metal Engineering Division, responsible for railway technology within the Group, is further extending its global leadership position, particularly by winning orders for key projects in the growing markets in Asia and the NAFTA region. At the same time, advancing digitalization of Europe’s railways is resulting in rising demand for innovative signaling and safety technology from the voestalpine Group. This was the backdrop to the Group’s appearance at InnoTrans 2016, the leading international trade fair for transport technology which ran from September 23 to 26 in Berlin and focused on integrated and highly digitalized system solutions for railway operators.
voestalpine is not only constantly expanding its international production capacities in the mobility sector, investment in this growth segment also continues in Linz. Around EUR 30 million has recently flowed into the construction of a new plant for manufacturing high-quality blanks which will then be processed into automotive components. Following a construction period of just over a year, today marked the opening of what is now the world’s largest production site for laser-welded blanks in ultra high-strength steels. In future, 20 million blanks a year will be produced in Linz and exported throughout the world.
The voestalpine Group is continuing its global drive to innovate in the field of pioneering technologies: today a new research and development center for 3D printing of metal parts was opened at the voestalpine site in Düsseldorf. The voestalpine Additive Manufacturing Center will bundle all the Group’s research activities in this field, harnessing the manufacturing process for particularly complex and lightweight metal components for use in aviation and aerospace, the automotive industry, tool manufacturing, etc. The next step will be more cooperative partnerships and locations in North America and China. In future the raw material required for the process—a specially manufactured metal powder—will be supplied by the Group companies Böhler Edelstahl GmbH & Co KG, Austria, and Uddeholms AB, Sweden.
The technology and capital goods group voestalpine plans to increase its revenue in the NAFTA region from the present EUR 1.2 billion to EUR 3 billion by 2020. A new USD 500 million order for its automotive sector brings the company one step closer to this goal. To be able to fulfill this large order from a German premium automotive manufacturer, voestalpine invests more than USD 60 million in two US sites. On the one hand, the automotive component plant in Cartersville, Georgia, opened in 2014, is already entering the third expansion stage, and on the other, the Group is investing in a new site in Birmingham, Alabama. voestalpine thus creates a total of over 400 jobs at these two locations by 2020.
The development of the financial key figures of the voestalpine Group in the first quarter of the business year 2016/17 (April 1 to June 30, 2016) reflects the significant non-recurring effects in the first quarter of 2015/16, as well as the economic environment that continues to be difficult. Furthermore, the current weaker figures are being compared to the first quarter of 2015/16, when operating results were well above average.
voestalpine and VERBUND, two of Austria’s largest industrial corporations and ecological pioneers in their respective industries, will step up their collaboration in the future with strategic cooperation projects. In addition to new concepts for long-term electricity supply by VERBUND for individual voestalpine locations, they will include more flexible concepts in the areas of generation of electricity and power requirements, exploring possible photovoltaics projects at voestalpine locations in Austria, and R&D collaboration in the future-oriented utilization of hydrogen.