EuroWire March 2019

Transatlantic cable

† Again according to Press TV , Iran plans to boost its steel output to 55 million mt a year by 2025, of which 10 to 15 million mt would be earmarked for export. Currently, domestic steel consumption remains flat due to stagnation in the construction and automotive industries, which use up much of the steel consumed in Iran. Iran also imports steel – mainly stainless, flat and pipe products – from CIS states, China and the EU, and Mr Parvan of AASIM expects the import total to remain at around 4 million mt a year.

cent in the first half of 2018 and then fell about 21 per cent from that peak in the second half of the year. And the trend appears likely to continue this year. “Steel prices remain under pressure to begin 2019,” Michael Fitzgerald, a metals pricing specialist at S&P Global Platts, told the Times in January. “Typical seasonal improvements following the slower holiday period are yet to take hold as domestic steel buyers no longer fear a supply crunch.” † Prospects would seem dim for “a big, beautiful wall” on the USA/Mexico border – built with, as Mr Trump recently suggested, “steel that has concrete inside” – but the Times reported that “some [in the steel industry] are hanging their hopes” on the possibility. According to an AISI analysis, an all-steel barrier along the border could require as much as three million tons of steel. “If they decide to build a barrier and decide to make it out of steel,” John J Ferriola, the CEO of Nucor, told Mr Rappeport, “the industry stands ready and capable and more than able to provide the steel and assist in the construction.” Despite US sanctions, and helped by the recent Iranian currency devaluation, Iran’s steel exports have remained steady In August 2018 the USA imposed secondary sanctions on Iranian steel and aluminium, followed in November by sanctions targeting Iran’s oil, energy and shipping sectors. But, according to the Iranian international news network Press TV , boosted by a lower rial the country’s “burgeoning” steel industry has even so seen its steel exports become highly competitive on world markets. (“US Sanctions Are Surprise Boon to Iran’s Steel Exports,” 9 th January) Press TV reported that CEO Mohsen Parvan of the Tehran-based AASIM Consulting Group said Iran’s steel exports for its fiscal year ended 21 st March were set to equal the 2017 full-year record of over 9 million metric tons (mt). According to the US oil pricing agency S&P Global Platts, AASIM operates an engineering consultancy, with an Indian partner, in the Iranian iron, steel, mining and chemical sectors. Platts quoted Mr Parvan as saying that at least half the total of 6 million mt of steel exports reported by Iran in December was in the form of semi-finished products such as billet and slab. Despite the sanctions, Iranian steelmakers reportedly have largely maintained their links with partners, mainly in the Middle East, Russia and China. Press TV wrote that Iranian rebar, billets, IPE (I-beams), blooms and slabs “have avid customers” in Iraq, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. Former USSR nations such as Ukraine and Kazakhstan, now members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), were also said to have taken in Iranian steel, with smaller amounts sold in Europe. In December, Bahram Sobhani, head of the Iranian Steel Producers Association (ISPA), projected a somewhat lower total (7.8 million mt) of steel exports by the end of the Iranian fiscal year. The Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported his estimate that, at an average rate of $450 per mt, Iran’s steel exports for the year would be worth $3.5 billion.

Energy

‘Where were you when the lights went out?’ A tagline from the 1977 blackout in New York City may be heard again – and soon. Pieter Arntz is a Netherlands-based malware intelligence researcher who was named Microsoft’s MVP (most valuable professional) in consumer security for 12 years running. Recently the cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes (Santa Clara, California), for which he blogs, posted an article by Mr Arntz warning of the dangers to energy companies from cyberattacks. (“Compromising Vital Infrastructure: The Power Grid,” 13 th December 2018) Acknowledging that the underlying hardware of the power grid – together with backup systems and procedures – has been much improved in many Western nations over the last few decades, Mr Arntz nonetheless issued a warning: “This is not to say that it’s impossible to do physical damage if an attacker is determined enough, as the 2013 sniper attack on a California energy grid substation demonstrated.” He named several malware variants (Stuxnet; BlackEnergy; CrashOverRide, aka Industroyer; Dragonfly, aka Energetic Bear; Sandworm) that can be held responsible for major power outages around the globe. Stuxnet, believed to be designed specifically to destroy the Iranian nuclear programme, could also be used to bring down power plants. In 2014, the US government reported that hackers had planted BlackEnergy malware on the networks of American power and water utilities. And, in 2015, hackers suspected to be based in Russia used BlackEnergy to shut down the Ukrainian power grid. Sandworm has been detected in targeted attacks against NATO, the European Union, and individual companies in the telecommunications and energy sectors. If these instances were not enough to show that hacking into power supplies is not entirely theoretical, Mr Arntz reminded his readers that, in 2013, Iranian hackers infiltrated the control system of a small dam less than 20 miles from New York City. Unfortunately, he wrote: “Many power plants are still accessible from the Internet in ways that endanger their cybersecurity.” An argument for ‘microgrids’ Mr Arntz did not lead off with a pitch for advanced cybersecurity countermeasures but rather with a primer on what may be called the basics, beginning with self-protection and vigilance. But companies in the power industry should,

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March 2019