This year LIBERTY Ostrava, the Czech Republic’s leading integrated steelworks, celebrates its 70th anniversary.  On 31 December 1951 the Foundation Deed of the Klement Gottwald Nova hut, as the plant was initially named after the then Czechoslovak president, was signed. On Sunday, 5^th September, the Ostrava steelworks celebrated that signing with its employees and their families at a major celebratory event at the Silesian Ostrava castle.

To commemorate this important anniversary, LIBERTY Ostrava organised a celebration, which was visited by 4,000 of its employees and their family members. Part of the celebration will be a mass served by Dariusz Sputo, priest at the local Roman-Catholic parish of Ostrava – Kunčičky, on the company premises. Later at the Silesian Ostrava castle, a celebration ceremony took place with the participation of the company´s management during which a book published on the occasion of the 70^th anniversary was introduced. The celebration also included a series of concerts from well-known Czech musicians, such as Ewa Farna, Xindl X, and Rock & Roll Band of Marcel Woodman, as well as a range of attractions for children.

Sanjeev Gupta, Executive Chairman of LIBERTY Steel Group, said: “It is a great honour for LIBERTY to be able to build on the rich tradition of steelmaking here in the city of Ostrava and the Moravian-Silesian Region. We want to rise to this challenge and therefore our objective now is to ensure sustainable future for the steelworks, its employees and the generations to come.  We are working to accelerate the transformation that will enable us to make LIBERTY Ostrava a truly GREENSTEEL company which produces steel by recycling scrap using renewable energy sources so that it can achieve carbon neutrality by 2030.”

Interesting facts about the Ostrava steelworks:

• Since 1952 the company´s blast furnaces have produced more than 147 million tonnes of hot metal.
• The steel shop has produced c. 178 million tonnes of steel.
• Our country’s roads and motorways are lined with more than 45 thousand kilometres of safety guard rails manufactured by the Ostrava steelworks.
• In 1954, during the preparation of the foundations of the foundry, the biggest Ice Age boulder ever found in the Czech Republic was discovered 6.8 metres underground. This boulder weighing 16.5 tonnes is displayed on the company´s premises.
• The longest mill is the medium-section rolling one, which is one kilometre long.
• The most workers employed by the company was 25,433 in 1981. We currently employ around 5,800.
• The most steel produced in one year was in 1989 at 3.9 million tonnes. This year we expect to produce around 2.5 million tonnes.
• The heaviest product ever manufactured in the foundry was a casting of 140 tonnes, 4.2 metres in height and diameter of nearly 4 metres in 2009.
• The most interesting order has been the manufacture of the casting of the Cunning Little Vixen in 1962, which was placed in the Hukvaldy game park to commemorate the first night of this opera by Leoš Janáček.
• The plant’s road network is nearly 50 kilometres long, while the length of the railway within the plant is 250 kilometres.

LIBERTY Ostrava is an integrated steel business with an annual production capacity of approximately 3.6 million tonnes per annum serving primarily construction, machinery and oil & gas industries. The company is a domestic leader in the manufacture of road barriers and tubes. In addition to the Czech market, it supplies its products to more than 40 countries around the world. Together with its subsidiaries in Ostrava, the company has 6,000 employees. The company manufactures its products with a minimum possible environmental footprint. The mill is part of LIBERTY Steel Group.

LIBERTY Steel Group is part of GFG Alliance, a collection of global businesses and investments owned by Sanjeev Gupta and his family. The Alliance is structured into three core industrial pillars: LIBERTY Steel Group, ALVANCE Aluminium Group and SIMEC Energy Group, independent of each other yet united through shared values and a purpose to create a sustainable future for industry and society. GFG Alliance employs c.35,000 people, across 30 countries and has revenues of >USD $20bn.

libertysteelgroup.com/cz/
www.libertysteelgroup.com
www.gfgalliance.com