ArcelorMittal Europe announced an operating profit for 2015 of €145m on Friday, despite losses in the third and fourth quarters.

The European segment of the steel and mining company reported that this operating profit was significantly down from 2014's, which stood at €549m, which it attributed to the impact of lower steel prices on the business. Full-year EBITDA for 2015 was €2,158m, compared with €1,730m the year before.

The Europe branch experienced an operating loss of €23 million for the third quarter ended 30 September 2015, whilst the fourth quarter brought another operating losee of €465m in contrast to the €122m profit recorded by the company for the same quarter in 2014. However, ArcelorMittal reported that the Q4 2015 performance was impacted by impairments of €366m, primarily in connection with the temporary idling of ArcelorMittal Sestao in Spain, as well as €316m of inventory write-downs due to declining steel prices.

Lower costs and efficiency improvements meant that EBITDA in Q4 2015 improved by 12.5%, but crude steel production saw a fall of 8.2% to 10 million tonness in 2015's final quarter compared to the previous quarter. This was again attributed to lower demand, as well as maintenance works in Dunkirk and Gent.

ArcelorMittal appears to have been on the receiving end of the impact from lower steel demand in China which culminated in record levels of what the company termed "unfairly priced imports" into the European Union. ArcelorMittal reiteraed its call for the European Union to employ trade defence instruments to impose tariffs on steel imports priced at these levels, to ensure a long-term future for the steel industry in Europe.

"ArcelorMittal Europe has today reported an operating profit of €145m for 2015, but we recorded an operating loss of €465m for the fourth quarter of the year, which included €316m of exceptional charges relating to the write-down of inventories following the rapid decline of steel prices," commented Aditya Mittal, CEO ArcelorMittal Europe. "We have now recorded two consecutive quarterly losses as a result of this price deterioration in the second half of the year, following six consecutive quarters of profit. It is now widely known that the steel industry in Europe is suffering as a result of record levels of low-priced unfair imports."

 


Graphy by ArcelorMittal