July 2006 — Arcelor announced plans to set up a steel service center in Romania with Spain's Bamesa. This new center will be 40%-owned by Arcelor and will be located in the Topoloveni region, close to the Dacia (Renault group) plants that produce the Logan car.

The new service center will supply high-quality steels for specific applications in the automotive and domestic appliance industries. The two partners expect to invest euro30 million in the SSC between now and 2008. The service center will eventually have annual production capacity of 300,000 tonnes.

The service center will feature leading-edge technology, and will use press blanking (PBL), slitting, cut-to-length and trapezoidal lines to meet customers' requirements for sheet metal that is cut and formed to order.

Gonzalo Urquijo, Arcelor CFO and Senior Executive Vice President in charge of Arcelor Steel Solutions and Services, commented, "This new service center will allow us, working alongside our partner Bamesa, to seize growth opportunities in Central and Eastern European markets."

Michel Wurth, Deputy CEO in charge of Arcelor's flat products sector, stressed the importance of this initiative as part of Arcelor's leadership strategy in the automotive industry: "This new service center enables us to extend our relationships with existing major international customers moving into this region. As world number one in automotive steels, Arcelor offers the same high product quality and tailored service standards wherever our customers are located."

Construction work has already begun on a 130,000-square-meter plot of land, and the new service center is scheduled to be up and running in the first half of 2007.

Based in Spain, Bamesa has steel service centers in Spain, Portugal, France and Turkey, along with interests in Mexico and Romania. Bamesa's projected 2006 sales are over euro1 billion, and the company generated EBITDA of euro75 million in 2005. Bamesa and Arcelor have been working together for more than eight years. Their joint service center in Turkey (Bamesa Çelik) is the leading center in its market.

Arcelor holds leadership positions in its main markets: automotive, construction, household appliances and packaging as well as general industry. The company endeavors to further expand internationally in order to capture the growth potential of developing economies and offer technologically advanced steel solutions to its global customers. In 2006, Arcelor employs 110,000 associates in over 60 countries. The company places its commitment to sustainable development at the heart of its strategy and ambitions to be a benchmark for economic performance, labor relations and social responsibility.