Annual Report 2005/06 - voestalpine

Materials costs. Incorporate all expenditures
necessary for the procurement of raw
and auxiliary materials to be processed by
a company for resale.
Net financial debt. Interest-bearing liabilities
less interest-earning assets.
Rating. An evaluation of the credit quality
of a company recognized on international
capital markets.
Return on equity. The ROE is the ratio between
the after-tax profit (net income) and the
equity as recorded in the previous period.
ROCE (return on capital employed). ROCE
is the ratio of EBIT to capital employed, that
is, profit generated by the capital invested.
Share capital. The minimum capital requirement
to be contributed by the shareholders
for shares when establishing a stock corporation
or limited partnership; it is issued in
shares and constitutes a part of equity.
Volatility. The degree of fluctuation in stock
prices and currency exchange rates or in
prices of consumer goods in comparison to
the market.
WACC (weighted average cost of capital).
Average capital costs for funding with both
borrowed capital and equity.
Technical
Blanking. An early step in preparing flatrolled
steel for use by an end user. A blank
is a section of sheet that has the same outer
dimensions as a specified part (such as
a car door or hood) but that has not yet been
stamped.
Blast furnace. A towering cylinder lined with
heat-resistant (refractory) bricks, used by
integrated steel mills to smelt iron from ore.
Its name comes from the “blast” of hot air
and gases forced up through the iron ore,
coke and limestone that load the furnace.
Bloom. A semi-finished steel form whose
rectangular cross-section is more than eight
inches. This large cast steel shape is broken
down in the mill to produce the familiar rails,
I-beams, H-beams and sheet piling. Blooms
are also part of the high-quality bar manufacturing
process. Reduction of a bloom to
a much smaller cross-section can improve
the quality of the metal.
Body-in-white. Unpainted and untrimmed
automotive upper body structures.
Coating. The process of covering steel with
another material (tin, chrome, zinc), primarily
for corrosion resistance.
Coils. Steel sheet that has been wound. A
slab, once rolled in a hot-strip mill, can be
more than one mile long; coils are the most
efficient way to store and transport sheet
steel.
Coke. The basic fuel consumed in blast furnaces
in the smelting of iron. Coke is a processed
form of coal.
Service
Cold working (rolling). Changes in the
structure and shape of steel at a low temperature
(often room temperature). It is used
to create a permanent increase in the hardness
and strength of the steel.
Continuous casting. A method of pouring
steel directly from a ladle through a tundish
into a mold, shaped to form billets, blooms,
or slabs.
Galvanized steel. Steel coated with a thin
layer of zinc to provide corrosion resistance
in underbody auto parts, garbage cans, storage
tanks, or fencing wire. Sheet steel normally
must be cold-rolled prior to the galvanizing
stage.
Hot dipped. Steel is run through a molten
zinc coating bath, followed by an air stream
“wipe” that controls the thickness of the zinc
finish.
Electrogalvanized. Zinc plating process
in which the molecules on the positively
charged zinc anode attach to the negatively
charged sheet steel. The thickness of the
zinc coating is readily controlled. By increasing
the electric charge or slowing the speed
of the steel through the plating area, the
coating will thicken.
Heavy plate. Steel sheet with a width of up
to 200 inches and a thickness of at least
5 millimeters. Mainly used for construction,
heavy machinery, ship building or pipes of
big diameters.
Hollow sections. See “Welded tubes”
Annual Report 2005/06
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