EKO Stahl

It was established by the East German government in the early 1950s on a greenfield site, initially producing only pig iron.

After German reunification in 1990 the state-owned plant was privatised, and Belgian firm Cockerill-Sambre acquired it in stages from 1994 to 1998.

A flat, agriculturally unimportant site near Fürstenberg [de] was chosen, and on 18 August 1950 minister Fritz Selbmann symbolically felled a mountain pine tree, indicating the start of the work on construction of the new plant, named Eisenhuttenkombinat 'J.W.

[1] Part of the rationale for the plant was to compensate for an embargo on steel from western Germany, where most of primary production had historically been located – raw materials (iron ore and coal) were to be supplied from Ukraine and Upper Silesia respectively.

[7] In 1984 a turnkey oxygen conversion (Linz-Donawitz process) based steelworks was installed by Austrian supplier Voest-Alpine.

[8] At German reunification in 1990 EKO became a corporation (EKO Stahl GmbH) – subsequent loss of business in East Germany and eastern Europe caused serious economic problems for the company, as did the high employment rates, and relatively low-value product range.