Romania’s Liberty Galati has begun a partial restart of operations after securing tolling agreements with commodities trader Glencore and Turkish steel service center Kaiseri Metal Center (KMC), marking the first production activity at the plant in around nine months.
Under the agreements, Glencore and KMC, through KMC’s Romanian subsidiary Ripen, will supply raw materials while Liberty Galati will provide rolling and processing services. The initial contracts cover the production of heavy plate, hot rolled coil and pre-painted steel products.
The restart is limited to the plant’s rolling operations, while the upstream production route, including the blast furnace and steelmaking facilities, remains idle.
The tolling model enables Liberty Galati to resume selected operations without financing raw material purchases, as ownership of both feedstock and finished products remains with the customer while the mill earns processing fees.
The company said the initial agreements represent the first step toward gradually increasing rolling volumes. Restarting downstream operations is also expected to help restore production teams and recommission equipment that has remained idle for several months.
Liberty Galați remains under preventive restructuring proceedings following a prolonged production shutdown. Two attempts to sell the steelworks have failed to attract binding offers despite reported interest from several international steelmakers and investors.
The company said a full restart of the integrated steelworks will continue to depend on securing a strategic investor capable of financing the resumption of upstream steel production and future modernization projects.
Liberty Galati is Romania’s only integrated steel producer and one of the largest steelmaking assets in Southeast Europe. The facility has an annual steelmaking capacity of up to 3 mln tons and supplies customers in the construction, automotive, shipbuilding, energy and defense sectors.