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Spain Manufacturing
Iron and Steel
Spain's steel industry was located in the north at
Vizcaya,
Cantabria, and Asturias, and in the south at Sagunto, near
Valencia. Though the steel industry had had an important
presence
in Spain since the second half of the nineteenth century,
it had
expanded greatly during the boom years of the 1960s and
the early
1970s. Production had gone from 1.9 million tons in 1960
to 11.1
million tons in 1975, making the country the fifth largest
steel
producer in Europe and the thirteenth largest in the
world. By
the late 1970s, however, a worldwide glut in steelmaking
capacity
and the domestic economic slump had led to a severe crisis
in the
industry. Thereafter, the Spanish steel industry
experienced an
extensive contraction, not only in production capacity,
but also
in the size of its labor force.
Despite a 50 percent drop in domestic steel
consumption,
production remained at about 13 million tons per year
during the
early 1980s, and it reached a high of 14 million tons in
1985.
High production levels were maintained through extensive
exports;
the two largest steel producers, the state firm ENSIDESA,
and the
Basque company, Altos Hornos de Vizcaya, were among the
nation's
most important exporters after the large automobile
companies.
Both of these companies and most other steel companies
operated
with heavy losses, however.
Membership in the EC and in the European Coal and Steel
Community (ECSC) committed Spain to cutting back its iron
and
steel output and to reducing its overall capacity. Steel
output
declined almost 16 percent in 1986, to 11.8 million tons,
and it
fell to a slightly lower level in 1987. The government's
efforts
at restructuring the steel industry continued during the
later
1980s with the creation of Acenor, which consolidated the
producers of special grades of steel and became Western
Europe's
sixth largest firm of this kind. The large blast furnaces
at
Sagunta were shut down, and the government, which already
controlled ENSIDESA and Altos Hornos del Mediterraneo,
both INI
firms, took a 40 percent interest in Altos Hornos de
Vizcaya.
Data as of December 1988
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