from the golden age to the time of doubts

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The elimination of 2,950 positions worldwide includes 320 positions in France, but only on the Paris sites at Headquarters and in the North (near Valenciennes).

VBT is bought out by a German financial holding company. For Franck Chesseron, CGT union representative in Montbard, “they arrive without orders, with our own order book. It’s been 8 years that we haven’t been able to generate money. We don’t know what their strategy is to turn the situation around.”

“We are in doubt”

Franck Chesseron

CGT delegate at Vallourec Montbard

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The trade unionist remains rather expectant: “They presented a team of consultants, who will be present in all the departments of the company: production, maintenance, IT, sales, human resources. They decided on a period of 100 days after which they will tell us how it will go. We are in doubt.”

A form of audit which will allow the buyer to define the orientations of the Montbard site, but which leaves the social partners rather reserved: “We will come back in September, we will know more about the strategic orientation. For the moment, there are 3 big suppliers of tubes for bearings in Europe, there will not be enough work for the 3! It is no longer profitable to manufacture tubes in France.”

The industrial origins of what will become the Vallourec group date back to the end of the 19th century. and the discovery by the Mannesmann brothers in Germany of the process for rolling seamless steel tubes.
French tube manufacturers are beginning to adopt this manufacturing process and industrial sites are created in the North and in Burgundy: the French Hollow Body Company, located in Montbard, is one of the group’s historical pillars. It was renamed Société Métallurgique de Montbard and listed on the Paris Stock Exchange in 1899.

Between 1920 and 1930, a concentration took place around the sector of the steel tube industry. The establishments of Valenciennes, Louvroil and Recquignies have created a commercial partnership named after the first three syllables of these three towns: Vallourec. Lhe merger of the Société des tubes de Valenciennes and the Société Louvroil-Montbard-Aulnoye is about to take place.
This group becomes the second largest manufacturer of steel tubes in France and is listed on the Paris Stock Exchange in 1957 under the name Vallourec.

In 1967, Vallourec takes over all the tube activities of its main competitor, Lorraine-Escaut. In the 1980s, more than 1,000 employees were present on the Montbard site.

In 2009, the restart of the nuclear industry in France and around the world relaunched the manufacture of stainless steel tubes by the Valinox sector and the Valtimet production site in Vénarey-lès-Laumes (Côte-d’Or).

In the spring of 2015, Vallourec announced the loss of two thousand jobs worldwide, due to the context of declining investment in the oil and gas industry linked to the drop in prices, including several hundred in France.

Franck Chesseron, CGT union representative, recalls: “We had a PSE in 2017 which did not allow us to straighten the accounts to balance. We were calibrated to produce 60,000 t a year, and then they recalibrated the factory to 256 people to produce 30 000 t and to be in equilibrium. We have come down to 30,000 tonnes but we have never been in equilibrium. But since 2014, we have lost between 5 and 8 million euros every year.

It is in this context of successive losses that the group is refocusing its activity on more profitable global sites, particularly located in South America and Asia. In fifteen years, Vallourec has increased its industrial presence by Asia (Chine et Indonesia), Brazil and Middle East to the detriment of Europe by increasing the local share of production.

Regarding the nuclear subsidiary, Vallourec Nucléaire was sold to Framatome last year. Then the announcement was made at the end of October 2021 to find a buyer for the Montbard site, now identified with the German holding company Mutares.

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