In our previous news item above we suggested that the commercial heat treating market in North America is doing OK-no better than OK and no worse.

 

However, this does not hold true for Europe as we found out recently at the HK24 Heat Treat Exhibition in Cologne, Germany in October. Gord Montgomery of “The Monty Heat Treat News” spent 2 weeks visiting both commercial and captive heat treaters in Germany, Switzerland and Austria as well as attending the exhibition and the general feeling was one of “doom and gloom”. It would appear that most commercial heat treaters especially in Germany are seeing sales declines of 25-35% on average which prompts the question-why?

 

In general the sales declines go directly back to a drop in demand from the auto industry which in turn goes back to two main factors; the first being the declining interest in electric vehicles upon which many European car makers have invested heavily, and the second being the shocking price of energy in the European Union market.

 

The graph below shows the cost to industrial users of electricity in a number of markets around the world. Even a cursory glance will show that the cost of electricity to industrial users (and consequently heat treaters) in the UK, Germany, France and Italy is several times that of areas such as North America and China.

 

Given these numbers it is obvious that given current conditions the future of captive and commercial heat treating in Europe is “challenging” to say the least.