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BUSINESS

Record profits put Ferrari in pole position for 2016

Italian luxury sports car maker Ferrari said on Monday it clocked up its best profits ever in the first quarter, setting it up for record earnings for the full year 2016.

Published: 3 May 2016 08:00 CEST
Record profits put Ferrari in pole position for 2016
Photo: Giuseppe Cacace/AFP

Net profit rose 19 percent in the first three months of the year from the same period in 2015, to €78 million ($89.7 million).

Revenues were up just under nine percent, and Ferrari cut its debt by €15 million to €782 million.

Ferrari delivered 1,882 cars in the quarter, up 15 percent, it said in a statement headlined “Strongest ever Q1, on the way to another record year”.

Volume growth was driven by the automaker's eight-cylinder (V8) segment, including two new models, the 488 GTB and the 488 Spider.

Shipments of its V12 models declined by six percent.

Among Ferrari's main world markets, Europe, the Middle East and Africa recorded the highest unit growth at 24 percent, while China, Hong Kong and Taiwan increased by 16 percent.

Shipments to the Americas rose by a comparatively weak two percent.

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ENVIRONMENT

Sweden’s SSAB to build €4.5bn green steel plant in Luleå 

The Swedish steel giant SSAB has announced plans to build a new steel plant in Luleå for 52 billion kronor (€4.5 billion), with the new plant expected to produce 2.5 million tons of steel a year from 2028.

Published: 2 April 2024 13:44 CEST
Sweden's SSAB to build €4.5bn green steel plant in Luleå 

“The transformation of Luleå is a major step on our journey to fossil-free steel production,” the company’s chief executive, Martin Lindqvist, said in a press release. “We will remove seven percent of Sweden’s carbon dioxide emissions, strengthen our competitiveness and secure jobs with the most cost-effective and sustainable sheet metal production in Europe.”

The new mini-mill, which is expected to start production at the end of 2028 and to hit full capacity in 2029, will include two electric arc furnaces, advanced secondary metallurgy, a direct strip rolling mill to produce SSABs specialty products, and a cold rolling complex to develop premium products for the transport industry.

It will be fed partly from hydrogen reduced iron ore produced at the HYBRIT joint venture in Gälliväre and partly with scrap steel. The company hopes to receive its environemntal permits by the end of 2024.

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The announcement comes just one week after SSAB revealed that it was seeking $500m in funding from the US government to develop a second HYBRIT manufacturing facility, using green hydrogen instead of fossil fuels to produce direct reduced iron and steel.

The company said it also hoped to expand capacity at SSAB’s steel mill in Montpelier, Iowa. 

The two new investment announcements strengthen the company’s claim to be the global pioneer in fossil-free steel.

It produced the world’s first sponge iron made with hydrogen instead of coke at its Hybrit pilot plant in Luleå in 2021. Gälliväre was chosen that same year as the site for the world’s first industrial scale plant using the technology. 

In 2023, SSAB announced it would transform its steel mill in Oxelösund to fossil-free production.

The company’s Raahe mill in Finland, which currently has new most advanced equipment, will be the last of the company’s big plants to shift away from blast furnaces. 

The steel industry currently produces 7 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, and shifting to hydrogen reduced steel and closing blast furnaces will reduce Sweden’s carbon emissions by 10 per cent and Finland’s by 7 per cent.

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