Galați steel works

The Galați steel works (Romanian: Combinatul Siderurgic Galaţi), formally ArcelorMittal Galați and formerly Sidex Galați, is a steel mill in Galaţi, Romania, the country's largest.

The idea of building a large steel works in eastern Romania, with access to the Danube and/or the Black Sea, was first discussed in 1958 at a plenary session of the ruling Romanian Workers' Party. The decision was formalized by a decree in July 1960, shortly after the party's 8th Congress approved a huge investment for the project. At the congress, a heated debate took place over where to situate the plant; some wanted it near Constanţa, at Midia or Mangalia, but they were overruled by leader Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, who had roots in Galați. Building the works went against the wishes of the Soviet Union, whose leader Nikita Khrushchev, supported by the more industrialized Czechoslovakia and East Germany, wanted to have the southern part of the Comecon focus on building agrarian economies. Gheorghiu-Dej stridently opposed this notion, and the Soviets' unwillingness to back the project helped foster Romania's opening towards the West.

The 30-year-old director of the metallurgical industry's planning and engineering institute (IPROMET) in Bucharest was chosen to design the construction platform. After a thorough scientific study of air currents, groundwater and the stability of the land, a site was chosen in the city itself rather than in Tulucești or in the area between Galați and Brăila. A special company, ICMRSG, was set up to build the works, hiring over 12,000 workers in six months and emptying entire villages in southern Moldavia and northern Muntenia of laborers. The construction site started to be prepared in July 1960. A year later, after the infrastructure needed by the builders had been set up, digging began. The first building to go up was the mechanical preparations workshop. Construction on the first significant production unit, the sheet rolling machine #1, began in April 1963.

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