Media releases

In 2004, which was the third full calendar year of the company’s independent business activities, VÍTKOVICE STEEL generated historically the best profit since the foundation of the company – the audited pre-tax profit was 1.56 billion CZK with sales amounting to 13.5 billion.

On April 1, the VÍTKOVICE hockey club will change its name to HC VÍTKOVICE STEEL. On this day, the contract for general partnership between VÍTKOVICE STEEL, a. s., and the VÍTKOVICE hockey club, which was signed in the second half of this January, will enter in force.

In line with the accession treaty between the Czech Republic and the European Union, VÍTKOVICE STEEL made an undertaking to modernize the company’s secondary metallurgy plant.

Certification by API (American Petroleum Institute) opened the way for VÍTKOVICE STEEL to orders from a completely new area of supplies of plates for oil and gas pipelines. In the first year after the certification the volume of these orders represented 2 % of the total plate sales of VÍTKOVÍCE STEEL and this year the company expects a further growths in these special supplies.

VÍTKOVICE STEEL supplies its plates not only for big container ships but also for excavators and diggers and other construction machines designed for earth-moving works. While the thickness of shipbuilding plates is between 5 and 50 mm, the thickness of plates for construction machines is between 5 and 200 mm.

VÍTKOVICE STEEL expects that the 2004 profit will be historically the best one since the formation of the Company. In aggregation with OSINEK, a. s., the Company’s profit was 1.6 billion CZK with sales being 13.5 billion CZK. For comparison, in 2003, the Company’s pre-tax profit was 143 million CZK.