EKO Stahl is a steelworks in

Eisenhüttenstadt Eisenhüttenstadt (; ; ) is a town in the Oder-Spree district of the state of Brandenburg, in eastern Germany, on the border with Poland. East Germany founded the city in 1950. It was known as Stalinstadt () between 1953 and 1961. Geography Th ...

Brandenburg Brandenburg, officially the State of Brandenburg, is a States of Germany, state in northeastern Germany. Brandenburg borders Poland and the states of Berlin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony. It is the List of Ger ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. It was established by the

East German government The German Democratic Republic (GDR; German: ''Deutsche Demokratische Republik'' (''DDR''), commonly known in English as East Germany) was created as a socialist republic on 7 October 1949 and began to institute a government based on the governme ...

in the early 1950s on a greenfield site, initially producing only

pig iron Pig iron, also known as crude iron, is an intermediate good used by the iron industry in the production of steel. It is developed by smelting iron ore in a blast furnace. Pig iron has a high carbon content, typically 3.8–4.7%, along with si ...

. The name was changed in 1961 from Eisenhuttenkombinat 'J.W. Stalin' to Eisenhüttenkombinat Ost (EKO).

Cold rolling In metalworking, rolling is a metal forming process in which metal stock is passed through one or more pairs of rolls to reduce the thickness, to make the thickness uniform, and/or to impart a desired mechanical property. The concept is simi ...

facilities were added in 1974, and

basic oxygen steelmaking Basic oxygen steelmaking (BOS, BOP, BOF, or OSM), also known as Linz-Donawitz steelmaking or the oxygen converter process,Brock and Elzinga, p. 50. is a method of primary steelmaking in which carbon-rich molten pig iron is made into steel. Blowin ...

in 1984. After

German reunification German reunification () was the process of re-establishing Germany as a single sovereign state, which began on 9 November 1989 and culminated on 3 October 1990 with the dissolution of the East Germany, German Democratic Republic and the int ...

in 1990 the state-owned plant was privatised, and Belgian firm

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 ...

acquired it in stages from 1994 to 1998.

Hot rolling In metalworking, rolling is a metal forming process in which metal stock is passed through one or more pairs of rolls to reduce the thickness, to make the thickness uniform, and/or to impart a desired mechanical property. The concept is simi ...

facilities were added in the 1990s. Through mergers and takeovers, the owning comping since 2006 has been

ArcelorMittal ArcelorMittal S.A. is a Luxembourg-based multinational steel manufacturing corporation, headquartered in Luxembourg City. It is ranked second on the list of steel producers behind Baowu, and had an annual crude steel production of 58 millio ...

, and the plant is known as ''ArcelorMittal Eisenhüttenstadt''.

History

In 1950 at the third party conference of the

Socialist Unity Party of Germany The Socialist Unity Party of Germany (, ; SED, ) was the founding and ruling party of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from the country's foundation in 1949 until its dissolution after the Peaceful Revolution in 1989. It was a Mar ...

the construction of a new steelworks was announced. A flat, agriculturally unimportant site near was chosen, and on 18 August 1950 minister Fritz Selbmann symbolically felled a

mountain pine ''Pinus mugo'', known as dwarf mountain pine, mountain pine, scrub mountain pine, Swiss mountain pine, bog pine, creeping pine, or mugo pine, is a species of conifer, native to high elevation habitats from southwestern to Central Europe and So ...

tree, indicating the start of the work on construction of the new plant, named ''Eisenhuttenkombinat 'J.W. Stalin. Part of the rationale for the plant was to compensate for an embargo on steel from western Germany, where most of primary production had historically been located – raw materials (

iron ore Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the f ...

and

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...

) were to be supplied from

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

and

Upper Silesia Upper Silesia ( ; ; ; ; Silesian German: ; ) is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia, located today mostly in Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic. The area is predominantly known for its heav ...

respectively. An additional rational was to provide work for a large number of German refugees (see also

Flight and expulsion of Germans from Poland during and after World War II The flight and expulsion of Germans from Poland was the largest of a series of Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950), flights and expulsions of Germans in Europe during and after World War II. The German population fled or was expelled ...

). In 1953 the number of planned blast furnaces was scaled back from eight to six, and overall plans for the site were reduced to include only production of

. As part of a continued political process of

De-Stalinization De-Stalinization () comprised a series of political reforms in the Soviet Union after Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, the death of long-time leader Joseph Stalin in 1953, and Khrushchev Thaw, the thaw brought about by ascension of Nik ...

the plant was renamed ''Eisenhüttenkombinat Ost'' (EKO), at the same time the nearby town of Stalinstadt was renamed Eisenhüttenstadt. In 1968 a cold rolling mill became operational after three years of construction; plans for addition of steel production and hot rolling were initiated in the same period, but cancelled in 1967. In 1969 the works was combined with several other steel producing works including those in VVB Stahl- und Walzwerke Berlin and VVB Eisenerz/Roheisen Saalfeld into ''Bandstahlkombinat Eisenhüttenstadt'' (BKE). In 1974 the cold rolling plant was improved to include the production of galvanised and other coated steels. In 1984 a

turnkey A turnkey, a turnkey project, or a turnkey operation (also spelled turn-key) is a type of project that is constructed so that it can be sold to any buyer as a completed product. This is contrasted with build to order, where the constructor builds ...

oxygen conversion (

Linz-Donawitz process Basic oxygen steelmaking (BOS, BOP, BOF, or OSM), also known as Linz-Donawitz steelmaking or the oxygen converter process,Brock and Elzinga, p. 50. is a method of primary steelmaking in which carbon-rich molten pig iron is made into steel. Blowin ...

) based steelworks was installed by Austrian supplier Voest-Alpine. At

in 1990 EKO became a corporation (EKO Stahl GmbH) – subsequent loss of business in East Germany and eastern Europe caused serious economic problems for the company, as did the high employment rates, and relatively low-value product range. During the transition to a free market model employment was reduced from over 12,000 to under 3,000. In 1994–95

acquired a 60% stake in the company, with the state (via the

treuhandanstalt The (, " Trust agency"), colloquially referred to as , was an agency established by the government of the German Democratic Republic to reprivatise/ privatise East German enterprises, Volkseigene Betriebe (VEBs), prior to German reunification ...

) retaining 40%. As part of the acquisition improvements to the plant were scheduled for completion 1998 including a new blast furnace, a hot rolling mill, and an upgrade to the cold rolling mill. 900 million Deutschmarks in state aid for the reconstruction was approved by the European Union. By 1997 the modernisation work and construction of blast furnace and hot rolling plant had been completed. In 1998 Cockerill-Sambre acquired the remaining 40% of the company for 40 million Deutschmarks.

became part of

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 ...

in 1998. A second galvanizing line was added in 1999, serving the automotive industry. The company became part of

Arcelor Arcelor S.A. was the world's largest steel producer in terms of turnover and the second largest in terms of steel output, with a turnover of €30.2 billion and shipments of 45 million metric tons of steel in 2004. The company was created in 2002 ...

in 2001 through the merger of Usinor,

Aceralia Aceralia was a large Spanish steel producer formed in 1997 by restructuring of a group formed from earlier mergers of the steel producers ENSIDESA and ''Altos Hornos de Vizcaya''. The company merged into Arcelor in 2001, and became part of ArcelorM ...

and

Arbed The Aciéries Réunies de Burbach-Eich-Dudelange ( French; literally "United Steelworks of Burbach-Eich-Dudelange"), better known by its acronym ARBED, was a major Luxembourg-based steel- and iron-producing company. Created in 1911 after the merg ...

. In 2006 the works became part of

though the takeover of the parent company. A third galvanising line was approved in 2007, and construction started in 2008, due to the global recession (see

Great Recession The Great Recession was a period of market decline in economies around the world that occurred from late 2007 to mid-2009.

) work on the line was halted in 2009, and a blast furnace idled. Economic uncertainty continued to the early 2010s. Lake Pohlitz supplies 8 million cubic meters of water to the process, and the waste water is treated before release to the Oder river.

References

Sources

* * *

External links

*{{citation, url =http://www.stahlseite.de/eko.htm, title = EKO STAHL, EISENHÜTTENSTADT, first = Uwe , last = Niggemeier Steel companies of Germany Economy of Brandenburg ArcelorMittal Companies of East Germany