Hungary extends bid deadline for sale of Dunaferr steel plant

The Hungarian government has extended the tender deadline for local flat steel producer Dunaferr, sources told Fastmarkets on Thursday, June 29. The previous application deadline was June 30, 2023, but it has been extended to July 14. to the document seen by Fastmarkets.

“The liquidator may extend the deadline for submission of proposals… for one period of 15 days… The ruling comes into force at 12:00 noon on the day of publication [June 29],” the document says.

UK-registered GFG Alliance (the parent company of Liberty Steel) and Vulcan Steel (a private company based in Mauritius) are the two main bidders to buy Dunaferr, sources told Fastmarkets.

In February, Liberty signed an operating and commercial agreement to help stabilize the Hungarian company, and steel production at Dunaferr resumed in mid-February under LIberty's control.

In December 2022, the Budapest City Court ordered the liquidation of Dunaferr, but the Hungarian government subsequently secured HUF 16 billion ($45.07 million) in funding to cover the wages of Dunaferr workers for six months.

Dunaferr has two blast furnaces with a total capacity of 1.4 million tons of pig iron per year, which is used to produce hot-rolled, cold-rolled and hot-dip galvanized coils.

According to the database of Fastmarkets, the design capacity of the Dunaferr hot-rolled steel plant is about 2 million tons per year.

But market participants say that Dunaferr's rolling mills have been idle since mid-June.

"The plan is to resume operations in mid-July," a source told Fastmarkets. "[It] depends on how the tender goes."