Source: Novinky.cz Date: 18.10.2024 Author: Pavel Karban

Milan Gurecký (45) was unemployed for eight months. After 27 years, he had to stop working one day at the beginning of the year due to debts of Liberty Ostrava. The company ordered him to stay at home and wait for a call. That came in August and today Gurecký is back at work as the bankrupt smelter restarts its flat products rolling mills and rourovna thanks to Vítkovice Machinery Trade.

Gurecký is happy to be back in operation. "We have been at home for a long time, we are finally back, " he said, adding that he has been back since October. "The operations manager called me in about mid-August to say that things would be coming on slowly. So for me to come back because there are some revisions to be made, everything to be set up, " the foreman of the dividing lines described.

He admitted that the worst thing about the past few months was the uncertainty of whether he would even have a place to return to. He revealed that he had tried to find work elsewhere, although he still hoped and believed that he would return to the steelworks. But several of his colleagues did not last and left. "But they were few, you could count them, maybe units... They all hoped they would come back too."

Gurecký now expects the company to deliver what it promised and those who stayed will have plenty of work. "Now I've already received my paycheck, even though the payday is not yet. So we will see, but we believe that the money will come," Gurecký said, hoping to stay at the company where he has spent his entire professional life for as long as possible.

Liberty Ostrava was able to restart production at least in part of the smelter thanks to financing from Vítkovice Machinery Trade of Jaroslav Strnad's CE Industries group. Plants 15 and 16, which are the rourovna and flat products rolling mills, are resuming operations. Together, both employ 1,350 people. "Today the rolling mills are being started up, next week the medium-sized rolling mill should be restarted and the rourovna should start up in the last week of October, " said Liberty Ostrava's managing director Pavel Šedivý, adding that the operation at the medium-sized rolling mill, which is plant 14, is again being helped by the Polish company Donquixote.


Statues, gates, scrolls

Since the primary production in Liberty Ostrava has ended, the factory has to buy semi-finished products. "The entrance for the pipe mill is basically a bar, it's called a billet, it's about a six-metre long billet with a circular cross-section, and it's made into a pipe. The gate is similar to the plate, but it is much thicker, and for the bollard the entrance is a coil, which is a strip that is cut lengthwise and profiled into a bollard, " explained Tomas Mischinger, managing director of Vítkovice Machinery Trade.

He noted that they supported the operation of the rourovna and the flat products mill financially because they have the greatest potential to sustain themselves on the market. "Among other things, we chose them to diversify the market a bit, because the rourovna is about the global market, whereas the weldments and flat products are about the local Czech-Slovak, German and Polish market, " he added.

According to Liberty Ostrava's insolvency administrator Šimon Peták, plants 15 and 16 are the most interesting for potential buyers. He is therefore happy that they will be back in operation. "The impact of this measure and the restart of production should lead to the overall preservation of Liberty's operations as such and, as a result, to the preservation of up to approximately 2,300 jobs and the possibility of selling the plant as a going concern, and therefore to greater satisfaction of creditors, " he pointed out.

As recently as last year, Liberty Ostrava had about 6,000 employees; now it has about 3,000 and will have about 2,400 at the end of the year. In addition to those who will remain at the rourovna and flat products mills, about 650 are to have jobs at the medium-sized rolling mill and about 400 people will be employed in service professions.

Liberty Ostrava, which belongs to the Liberty Steel group of the GFG Alliance of British businessman of Indian origin Sanjeev Gupta, went into bankruptcy because of debts of billions of crowns. Most of its operations have been idled since December 2023, when Tameh Czech stopped supplying power to the smelter. Most of the employees have been at home since then. The company has already stopped steel production.