Corus Group Ltd., the U.K. unit of India's Tata Steel Ltd., said newspaper reports that it may move operations to China unless European carbon emissions rules are overhauled are false.
The company's spokesman Bob Jones told Bloomberg that the stories are “completely false.”
However, the Independent on Sunday reported that Corus Chief Executive Officer Philippe Varin threatened to move the company's European operations to China. Varin told the Independent on Sunday that “If we are forced to buy CO2 credits on the market without a system to improve our production process, then we will not produce steel in Europe."
Varin said it is extremely expensive to cut carbon emissions of steel production and could cost between €200m to €300m to upgrade a one million ton production plant.
There has been a lot of concern over how EU emissions plans will affect heavy industry - in particular the steel industry. Earlier this year, lawyers for steel giant ArcelorMittal told Europe’s highest court that there was no justification for EU lawmakers to exclude the aluminum and chemical industries from 2003 legislation that capped CO2 emissions and that the exclusion puts the steel sector at a “complete disadvantage."
