Business area Europe

Europe is our biggest business area and serves the EMEA market, where our customers rely on our technical expertise. We are the market leader in Europe. Besides Europe, our sales and service center network covers Europe, Middle-East, Africa and Asia-Pacific, where we export high value-added products.

100 years of expertise and innovation

Our customers include both distributors and end-users. The product performance and technical expertise that our customers have come to expect from us have their roots in over 100 years of innovation in stainless steel. Our R&D experts in Finland, Germany and Sweden help our customers in material selection, technical support and product development.

In Europe, Outokumpu is serving its customers in two business lines according to the customer needs. Stainless Europe focuses on customers that are supplied large quantities of our cost competitive sustainable stainless steel, while Advanced Materials serves project business and the manufacturers of demanding applications by advanced products and alloys.

Sustainable stainless steel

In sustainable stainless steel operations in Europe, Outokumpu combines unmatched cost competitiveness, sustainability of our products, highest level of reliability and quality to a unique customer experience. Sustainable stainless steel is a material used in numerous different industries, including home applications, automotive, construction, infrastructure and industrial investments.

Outokumpu plans to invest approximately EUR 200 million in a new annealing and pickling line in Tornio, Finland. It will maximize the benefits from the fully integrated, cost-efficient operations in Tornio and Nordic clean and price competitive energy. At the same time, we are fighting cyclicality of the industry through optimization and operational excellence.

Furthermore, we will remain to be the undisputed sustainability leader in our industry, providing products with the lowest CO2 footprint in the industry, allowing our customers in turn to reduce their footprint. The availability of affordable clean energy in Finland, our unique access to clean ferrochrome from our inhouse operations and a continued high usage of scrap as our prime raw material mean that we have a unique position. This sustainability position we can further develop through smart decarbonization projects that drive innovation and allow us to develop own business models connecting partners around our main production entities towards smart decarbonization.

Advanced materials and alloys

In advanced materials and alloys, Outokumpu provides industrial end-users and fabricators with tailored stainless and nickel-based alloy solutions for demanding environments. By combining deep application expertise, flexible production, and a low-carbon footprint, we deliver products that optimize durability, performance, and lifecycle cost — from supply chain to end use — through deep customer understanding and specialty, high-quality supply.

As global megatrends such as urbanization, mobility, digitalization, and the transition to a low-carbon economy accelerate, the demand for high-performance materials is growing steadily. Specialty stainless steels and high-nickel alloys are increasingly essential in enabling solutions for these megatrends that require durability, corrosion resistance, and superior performance in demanding environments found in the process industry, oil and gas, and electric vehicles, for example.

Outokumpu is now looking for growth by expanding into high-margin, high-value grades and differentiating through customer collaboration, building on our strong legacy in special grades and moving actively away from commodity products. Advanced materials and alloys play a central role in reducing cyclicality and driving profitable growth.

Europe in numbers in 2025

Sustainability

3,600

million euros of net sales (65& of the Group external sales)  

SafetyNetwork

6,899

employees in Europe

Hot-and-cold-roll

28%

market share in Europe (EU30) 

Our mills in Europe

Avesta, Sweden

Avesta site houses a melt shop, hot rolling mill, cold rolling mill, finishing lines and an R&D center. 

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Degerfors, Sweden

Degerfors is Outokumpu’s largest plate mill specializes in stainless steel heavy plates – quarto plates – in nearly infinite forms. 

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Dillenburg, Germany

Dillenburg specializes in customized finishing processes that make for example unique and visual surfaces.

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Krefeld, Germany

Krefeld is a center of excellence in cold rolling, focusing on stainless steel materials with exceptionally high quality surface finishes and also home of one of our R&D centers.
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Nyby, Sweden

Our Nyby mill focuses on advanced materials. Its operations in metal goes back to some 200 years.
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Terneuzen, the Netherlands

Our Terneuzen operations are located at the heart of a logistical network in Holland’s third largest port, ideally positioned to serve customers throughout Europe by water, road and rail.
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Tornio, Finland

Outokumpu’s Tornio operations is the most integrated stainless steel plant in the world. Its operations consist of two stainless steel melt shop lines, hot rolling mill, cold rolling plant, brushing and polishing as well as slitting and cut-to-length lines. This is complemented by our own harbor, R&D center and ferrochrome works – and our Kemi mine is not far.
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