Acerinox

Acerinox, S.A.

Type	Sociedad Anónima (BMAD: ACX)
Industry	Steel
Founded	1970
Headquarters	Madrid, Spain
Key people	Rafael Naranjo (Chairman), Bernardo Velázquez (CEO)
Products	Stainless steel
Revenue	€4.500 billion (2010)
Operating income	€232.2 million (2010)
Profit	€122.7 million (2010)
Total assets	€4.240 billion (end 2010)
Total equity	€1.924 billion (end 2010)
Number of employees	7,390 (end 2010)
Website	www.acerinox.es

Acerinox, S.A. (Spanish pronunciation: [aθeɾiˈnoks]) is a stainless steel manufacturing conglomerate group based in Spain. The company was founded in 1970, and initially received technical support from the Japanese firm Nisshin Steel. Nisshin continues to hold approximately 15% of Acerinox as of April 2010. The headquarters are in Madrid. The chairman is Rafael Naranjo. As for 2008, the company was the world's largest producer of stainless steel.

Companies and factories

Spain

• Fábrica del Campo de Gibraltar (Los Barrios)
• Roldán SA
• Inoxfil SA
• Inoxcenter SA
• Inoxidables de Galicia SAU
• Metalinox Bilbao SA
• Inoxmetal SA
• Acimetal
• Alamak Espana Trade SL
• Inoxcenter Canarias SA

Europe

File:Oficinas de Acerinox (Madrid) 01.jpg

Acerinox's headquarters in Madrid

• Acerol – Comércio e Indústria de Aços Inoxidáveis (Portugal)
• Acerinox France
• Acerinox UK Ltd (United Kingdom)
• Acerinox Scandinavia AB (Sweden)
• Acerinox Schweiz SA (Switzerland)
• Acerinox Italia SRL (Italy)
• Betinoks Turquía (Turkey)
• Acerinox Polska sp. z o.o. (Poland)

Rest of the world

• Columbus Stainless (South Africa)
• Bahru Stainless (Malaysia)
• North American Stainless (USA)
• Acerinox Argentina
• Acerinox Chile

Accidents

In 1998, the Acerinox factory in Los Barrios, Cadiz melted a capsule of cesium-137 that was in a consignment of scrap metal. The radioactive substance was released into the atmosphere and spread over Europe — nuclear authorities in France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland detected up to 2,400 microbecquerels of ionising radiation in the air, 1,000 times higher than the norm. Two other factories in Huelva and Badajoz also became contaminated by waste transported to them from Acerinox. During the clean-up, 7,000 metric tons of radioactive waste were dumped in Mendaña marshes, Huelva. The estimated costs of the accident were 20 million US dollars for lost production in the factory, $3 million for clean-up, and $3 million for waste storage.

See also

• List of steel producers

External links

• Official website

• El CSN detectó la fuga antes del 9 de junio, pero no informó por considerarla menor La Vanguardia (newspaper), 17 June 1998, p.32. (Spanish)
• MR de Elvira (1998) El caro incidente de la chatarra en Cádiz El País (newspaper), Madrid, 23 September 1998. (Spanish)
• NFLA Radioactive scrap metal — Meltings
• Los Verdes exige que el cesio de Mendaña sea trasladado a El Cabril, Huelva Información (newspaper), 7 February 2008. (Spanish)