Voestalpine : posts highest revenue and earnings since “Lehman” for the year’s first half

At EUR 338 million, investments in the first half of 2017/18 fell short of depreciations for the first time in years due, in particular, to the successful completion of certain major investment projects of the past few years such as the direct reduction plant in Texas, USA, or the new, fully digitalized wire rod mill in Donawitz, Austria. 'We are taking a break, so to speak, before the next round of technology investments in the first half of the 2020s,' Wolfgang Eder explains. That said, the internationalization strategy with its focus on China and North America, key markets both, as well as ongoing investments in cutting-edge technologies will be consistently implemented in the future as well. The decision to build the world's most advanced special steel plant in Kapfenberg, Austria, was taken in late September 2017. 'This mega investment with a total expenditure of between EUR 330 and EUR 350 million will provide the basis for saving more than 3,000 jobs in Styria, Austria, and assure our technology leadership in the high-performance metals segment in the long term,' Eder continues. The commissioning is slated for 2021.