Venezuelan Executive: Sidor expropriation to include Matesi, Tavsa

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's recently announced plan to take control over all of steelmaker Ternium's (NYSE: TX) assets in the country will include companies Matesi and Tavsa, according to a board member at steelmaker Sidor. The move would satisfy a petition to nationalize that Matesi employees have been making since June after the plant was not included when Chávez called for state control over Sidor in April. "When the contract to purchase the company is drawn up, we want it to be crystal clear which rights the employees retain at the companies," Sidor board member Pedro Rondón told BNamericas. Ternium, which owns 59.7% of Sidor, asked Venezuelan authorities to resume negotiations for transferring the steelmaker to the Venezuelan state after Chávez announced he had given up on negotiations and would proceed with expropriation. The Matesi plant, in the Guayana region, has production capacity of 1.5Mt/y. It is controlled by Venezuela's Materiales Siderúrgicos (Masisa), a company held by Luxembourg-based Tenaris (NYSE: TS) and Sidor with stakes of 50.2% and 49.8%, respectively. The Tavsa plant, also a subsidiary of Tenaris, is the only seamless steel tube producer in Venezuela and supplies state oil company PDVSA. Located in Puerto Ordaz, Tavsa has production capacity of 80,000t/y of seamless steel tubes and employs roughly 250 workers. State heavy industry holding company CVG has a minority stake in Tavsa. Ternium and Tenaris are both subsidiaries of Argentine-Italian Techint group.