Luxembourg engineering company, Paul Wurth, was in optimistic form yesterday on publication of their accounts for 2016. The company says that thanks to an increased order intake of 17%, it is well prepared to face new challenges despite an unalterably fragile and investment inhibiting environment.
The company characterised the global climate in the steel industry as static through 2016, with no significant improvements compared to the previous year thanks to over-capacities combined with cheap imports from China, ever-smaller margins and a reluctance to invest on the part of the steel producers.
However, despite the gloomy environment, Paul Wurth Group reported a strong performance for the year with new orders rising to €435 million, the result of a large number of small order for modernisation and servicing missions. First orders were also gained in the new fields of activity that are pellet plants and valves for the oil and gas industry.
The largest contribution to the new order volume came from a project on behalf of Algerian Qatar Steel in Algeria, where Paul Wurth and its technology partner Midrex were awarded the contract to design and build a Midrex® direct reduction plant. In traditional integrated steel production plants, Paul Wurth secured two important projects in Russia. The first order consists of supplying key technologies for the Evraz Group’s new blast furnace at Nizhny Tagil. The second is a contract from Russian steel group NLMK to reline its blast furnace No. 6 in Lipetsk.
In coke making technology, Paul Wurth was pleased with the successful commissioning of the new coking plant at Companhia Siderúrgica do Pecém in Brazil. In this sector, too, the group landed a major order for the rebuild of two coke oven batteries at ArcelorMittal Asturias in Spain.
The group was very happy with the performance of subsidiary Paul Wurth Geprolux in Luxembourg, which nearly doubled its order intake for project and site management services in construction and infrastructure projects, adding some prestige projects to their portfolio including the new national football stadium, the “Südspidol” hospital and another dairy factory.
Turnover, however, was down against 2015, at €362 million, which the company attributes to low order intakes in 2013 and 2014.
Paul Wurth closed the financial year 2016 with earnings before taxes of €15.1 million and a net profit of €8.4 million. At the company AGM yesterday, the board approved payment of an unchanged gross dividend of €157.5 per share on account of the 2016 financial year.
In 2016, the Group’s major R&D activities focused mainly on environmental and energy-related topics with regard to blast furnace, coke making and agglomeration plants.
In view of the plans to reform the European Emissions Trading System, the group will be concentrating its research efforts on CO2 emissions in the future. Its position in hot metal production technologies, means it will be involved in the development of alternative process routes, such as a hydrogen-based reduction process, and is also currently exploring the chemical conversion of waste gases into high-yield products.
Beyond traditional research and development, Paul Wurth would like to generate new growth opportunities by investigating other innovation paths. In the context of an extensive innovation programme, considerations about Industry 4.0 provided the impetus for the development of several projects with regard to the use and interconnectivity of digital data. In close collaboration with customers, several digitisation projects were identified and work has already started on these. In this context, Paul Wurth is working, together with SMS group, on a concept of intelligent metallurgical plants.
The company says that its business incubation programme, Paul Wurth InCub, has got off to a very good start. More than 50 applicants responded to the first official call for projects; 25 of these presented their start-up projects before a Paul Wurth jury. In the months that followed there was active cooperation on a wide range of innovative topics. To date, eight start-ups have already signed membership agreements and the first entrepreneurs moved into the offices of the newly-renovated Paul Wurth InCub House.
