Panel moderator: tbc
Panel moderator: Dr. Neil Bristow, Managing Director, H&W Worldwide Consulting Pty Ltd.
Panellists:
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Alessandro Sciamarelli holds the position of Director of Economic Studies and Market Analysis at the European Steel Association (EUROFER) based in Brussels, where he carries out economic research and analysis linked to the steel sector. Prior to joining EUROFER, he held for over ten years equivalent positions at other Brussels-based European associations (namely in the mortgage lending sector and the cement sector) and, before that, he worked for the Economic Studies Office of a leading cement and construction group in Rome and for the European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA) in Maastricht. He has dual nationality (Italian and Belgian) and he holds a PhD in Economics (1999) and a degree in political science (1995) from the University of Pisa, Italy.
Chris Bandmann joined Wood Mackenzie in January of 2023. He is responsible for delivering comprehensive research coverage of the Atlantic basin’s metallurgical coal sector including supply, demand, pricing and costs, with a primary focus on Europe.
Prior to joining Wood Mac Chris worked at CRU, performing market analysis on the European steel markets.
Chris holds an MSc and a BSc in Economics from the University of Exeter in the UK.
Mr. Schwartz is the President of the consulting firm of Energy Ventures Analysis and was one of the founders of the firm in 1981. He and his firm specialize in applied analysis of energy markets, including power, coal, natural gas, oil, renewables, and emissions. EVA publishes regular reports on energy markets, including forecasts of supply, demand, and prices. EVA’s clients include energy consumers, producers, and transporters as well as investors and regulators. Mr. Schwartz manages EVA’s coal consulting practice, which includes market studies, investment analysis, procurement operations, property valuations and transaction services. Mr. Schwartz testifies on energy markets before courts and regulatory agencies and has served as an arbitrator in contract disputes. He has also served as CEO of Centennial Resources and Atlantic Carbon, two coal producers and has been an agent for power plant coal procurement activities. He received a degree in Geological Engineering from Princeton University in 1977.
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Mark Bolton is the General Manager-Marketing and Logistics at the Jellinbah Group and has twenty-nine years of bulk commodity marketing and supply chain experience.
Building on his formative years in industrial minerals, mineral concentrates and refined base metals, Mark has focused the past sixteen years of his career in senior marketing and logistics roles in the Queensland metallurgical and thermal coal industries.
Passionate about marketing value maximisation through optimisation of the coal chain, Mark brings a wealth of current operational and marketing insight from the perspective of a 15 Mtpa private and independent metallurgical coal producer.
Jellinbah Group, currently the World’s 5th largest seaborne coal supplier, operates across multiple coal export chains in Queensland’s Bowen Basin and sells directly to end users in the global metallurgical coke, steel and energy markets.
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Greg Driscoll serves as Chairman at Blaschak Anthracite Corporation, a leader in the Pennsylvania Anthracite industry. He joined Blaschak in 2009 when the founding family sold the company to Milestone Partners, a Philadelphia based Private Equity firm and served as President and CEO from 2009 through 2019, when he transitioned to his current role as Chairman.
He is a seasoned senior energy industry executive with a background that includes petroleum refining and marketing, natural gas distribution, energy technology, demand-side power management and anthracite coal mining, preparation and distribution. A Chemical Engineer by training, he has served in executive capacities in a number of enterprises, from small start-ups to the Fortune 150.
He has served as a Trustee of The Franklin Institute, and as Director in a number of commercial and non-profit organizations including PMA Capital, and currently Blaschak Coal Corp.
Mr. Driscoll holds a BS in Chemical Engineering from Drexel University and participated in the Executive MBA program of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
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Banmeet leads CRU’s Metallurgical Coal and Coke research, and is the editor of the Metallurgical coal market outlook, providing market intelligence on current market trends and delivering a fundamentals driven perspective on the medium and long term steel and raw materials markets.
Banmeet has 12+ year cross commodity experience in the metals & mining, Oil & gas and energy sectors. Prior to CRU, Banmeet was Coal markets specialist for Anglo American Marketing Singapore and Wood Mackenzie. Banmeet has also covered Oil & gas markets for Woodside Petroleum and AGL Energy in Australia. Banmeet has cross functional experience working in a range of roles for research houses and producers in economics, commercial and marketing divisions.
Banmeet holds a bachelors degree in Actuarial studies from the Australian National University and is based in Sydney.
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Dr. James Stevenson is head of research in coal, metals and mining at McCloskey by OPIS, a Dow Jones company. Dr. Stevenson’s expertise includes supply, demand, and price dynamics of global coal, iron ore, steel, and ferrous scrap. He also has extensive experience in trading, M&A, and business development.
Prior to his current role, Dr. Stevenson worked in commodity trading, most recently at Mercuria Energy Trading, and before then at Louis Dreyfus Highbridge Energy (now Castleton Commodities). He also worked in energy trading at Eraring Energy (now part of Origin Energy) in the Australian utility industry.
Dr. Stevenson holds undergraduate and master’s degrees from the University of Sydney, and a PhD from Yale University.
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MSc Mohamed Efetürk studied mechanical engineering at the University of Duisburg-Essen and has been with HKM since 2017. He leads projects with a focus on reducing CO2 emissions, process optimization and cost reduction.
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Who are you?
Peter Hoppesteyn
Programme Lead Operational Sustainability
Tata Steel Nederland
What are you passionate about?
Helping Tata Steel Nederland in realising its moon-shot vision: “Making Green Steel in a Clean Environment”.
What does the world look like in 10 years?
Tata Steel Nederland makes 7 million tons of top quality flat steel products per year with at least 30% less CO2 emissions and is well on its way to become CO2 neutral by 2050. Emissions of dust, noise, smell and other troublesome items are reduced according to plan. People are proud to work for Tata Steel Nederland, customers praise the quality of our products and our neighbours are not annoyed by us.
On my bucket list
Climbing to the highest point of the new hydrogen based steelmaking installations.
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Pranay is based in Singapore and works as the Director of Research and Analysis at S&P Global commodity insights. His responsibilities include leading the analysis of global bulk commodities markets, building global and regional supply and demand balances, and providing short- to medium-term forecasts. Pranay has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and chemistry, as well as a postgraduate management degree in finance. He is also a member of the Singapore branch of the Institute of chartered shipbrokers.
Dr. Bristow has been actively involved in the steel and steelmaking raw materials industries for over 22 years. During this time, he has led numerous investigations in coal and iron ore technical and market research, minerals strategy development, and market planning for BHP’s coal business, and was Chief Analyst for BHP Billiton’s Carbon Steel Materials Group, leading the Market Intelligence Group in Singapore.
His key expertise in steel, metallurgical coal, iron ore, and manganese ore and ferroalloys, coupled with strategic vision and long term analysis on future directions in emerging markets, saw him as an early proponent of the rebirth of the global steel industry, the rise of China and of coal’s growth story, together with a strong belief in China’s emergence as a major seaborne metallurgical coal importer. He has been a strong advocate for India’s growing coal demand.
In April 2009, he formed H&W Worldwide Consulting, putting his strong market analysis and strategy skills to good use across bulk commodities, including iron ore and coal –for both coking and thermal.
As an internationally recognized expert in areas of steel and steelmaking raw materials, long term trends and scenarios, he has written and presented numerous publications at highly respected international conferences and meetings.
Mr. Gao Xingsuo is an expert in Cokemaking industry with 35 years’ experience in the R&D, engineering, project delivery, heating and commissioning of coke plants. He has been deeply involved in hundreds of cokemaking projects both in China and abroad, with deep understanding about the technology trends in cokemaking industry.
G.S.Venkata Subramanian has 37years of operational experience in Recovery type Coke Oven Operations.
• Educational qualification: B.Tech(Metallurgy) from Karnataka Regional Engineering College, presently NIT, Surathkal, India
• Joined Bhilai Steel plant (a flagship unit of Steel authority of India) in May 1982 as Management Trainee(Technical)
• Worked in various sections of Coke Oven and Coal Chemical department (1983-2018)
• Became Head of the Department (General Manager) in 2017
• 4 months prior to retirement, joined as Head of Energy management Department (Feb-May 2019)
• Superannuated from Bhilai Steel plant in May 2019
• Implemented e-log systems, Web based Delay Analysis for Wagon Tippler unloading and Battery production operations, numerous modifications in Coal, Coke Handling plants and Battery proper
• Championed the cause for initiating and purchasing high valued items for the department
• Initiated 5-S based housekeeping in Coke Plant and secured awards for improving work ambience with greenery and compliance to environmental norms
• Got the coveted ‘Jawahar Award’ twice for outstanding performance in 1999 and 2016
• Secured ‘Engineering Achievement Award’ from The Institution of Engineers (INDIA) in 2013
• Secured plant based ‘APEX’ Award in 2009 for improving Coke Handling Logistics
• Presented 20 technical papers during seminars and Operating Committee Meetings on Coke Making Technology, Environment Control of Coke Plant etc.
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Driven by a relentless pursuit of efficiency, Ajit Singh brings together the worlds of engineering and international business development. With a strong background in thermal engineering, he has spent the past decade honing his techno-commercial expertise in Asia and Europe. His passion lies in improving efficiency across industries such as steel, power, cement, and mining. Equipped with extensive knowledge of catalysts and additives, he specializes in optimizing combustion carbonization and various other hydrocarbon-related processes for all kinds of fuels. Let's connect to explore how we can enhance your operations together.
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Wolfgang Kern is a Process Engineer with more than 30 years of experience in Sales. He started his career in the power generation and waste to energy industry with various assignments at BBC, Babcock, ABB Hong Kong, ABB Switzerland, Lurgi Frankfurt, Singapore and Taiwan.
In early 2000, he returned to Germany to join DMT GmbH as Head of Sales for cokemaking. In 2016/2017 he was looking for a new challenge and joint the Paul Wurth Group as a senior sales manager. He has been deeply involved in recent years in following cokemaking projects in Europe, South Africa, Turkey, Korea, India, and North and South America etc. He is a regular participant in cokemaking conferences and he is a member of the German Cokemaking Association (VDKF).
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Senior Process Engineer and since 5 years at DMT. Designed and commissioned multiple Coke Oven By-product Plants.
Oana Niculita is the Head of Sales and Marketing of John M Henderson, the Scottish engineering company, one of the world’s leading suppliers of Coke Oven Machinery.
Oana has been working in the coke making industry for more than a decade and has had the opportunity of visiting many Coke Making plants in the world, witnessing firsthand the technical and operational challenges of the coke making operators worldwide. Oana’s main interests lie in the environmental and technological aspects of the coke-making, with special focus on developing technological solutions for improving the quality of the air and life for people working and living near the coke batteries.
Oana is a Chartered Manager and a member of the Coke Oven Managers Association in the UK, as well as a regular speaker at coke making congresses worldwide. Professional qualifications include an Honours degree in Business Administration, Masters Degree in Economics from the Universities of Freiburg, Germany and Lisbon, Portugal and a PhD in development with the University of Dundee, Scotland. She has worked as a business consultant for major multinational companies and has published a number of books and papers in the areas of strategic marketing.