Dihidrofolat reductasa (DHFR)

3.6.1 Sample strategy

For the purpose of the present study, the sampling for each sector should take into account the following criteria:

• Geographical coverage

• Capacities

• Production technology

• Ownership, i.e. company size

For the geographical coverage we will look at a representative sample including the following elements:

8 _{The discrepancy for BOF electricity intensity may be due to the fact that Remus et al. (2013) excludes}

any other electricity consuming entities on a BOF plant site, whereas Egenhofer et al. (2013) takes the electricity consumption of an entire BOF plant site into account.

80 • Spread over three regions: Southern, Central-Eastern and North-Western

Europe.

• Countries’ capacity shares

• Large and small Member States (in terms of population)

Table 14 indicates how the EU countries are assigned to the indicated regions. Figure 24 presents an overview of the steel plant sites spread over the three regions.

Table 14. Coverage of countries by each of the three regions EU region Countries

Southern Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Malta, Cyprus

Central-Eastern Poland, Slovenia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania

North-Western France, Ireland, UK, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Austria, Sweden, Finland

Figure 24. Spread of plants over the different regions

Source: Eurofer (2016)

Regarding capacity, data was bought from the German Steel Institute VDEh, which provides an overview of the spread of the nominal capacities over countries and companies.

When it comes to ownership, the sample includes global as well as regional players. This is required as a large share of companies in the EU has a regional production

81 focus (operating less than three plant sites), which might give these companies relatively less bargaining power and therefore make them be exposed to higher energy prices (see Figure 17). It is important to note that small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) are not relevant among steel-making facilities. For this reason, different plant sizes are not directly taken into consideration in the sampling strategy but are, to some extent, taken into consideration in the cross-sectoral analysis of this study.

When it comes to production technology, the following plant types are included and distinguished:

• Primary steel-making plants (BOF) • Secondary steel-making plants (EAF)

The sampling accounts for the differentiation between production technologies, as BOF and EAF steelmaking plants differ highly in terms of capacity size and energy consumption profiles, and can therefore not be compared in a meaningful way within the scope of this study. Processing plants are not considered in this study, as these are too heterogeneous, smaller in size, relatively less energy-intensive and challenging to reach out to.

The research team approached European steel companies through the steel sector’s official representative body on EU-level: The European Steel Association Eurofer. Eurofer is located in Brussels and was founded in 1976. It represents 100% of steel production in the European Union. Its members are steel companies and national steel federations throughout the EU. The major steel companies and national steel federations in Switzerland and Turkey are associate members (Eurofer, 2016).

Eurofer supported the research team in terms of contacting member companies and providing additional information on existing plant sites across the EU. Based on plant location, plant capacity and company affiliation as well as the association’s experience with contacting its members, a representative sample was selected in order represent the entire EU steel sector as accurately and reliable as possible.

As not all EU steel companies are actively engaged within Eurofer, especially those from Southern Europe and those that are not considered to be international players, the research team also contacted a number of national steel associations to reach out to plant sites in order to improve the representativeness of the sample. For some countries, contacts via the national steel association worked well and resulted in a higher response rate from the respective region (in particular those from North- Western Europe such as Scandinavia), whereas for other countries and regions (in particular those from Southern Europe), it did not lead to a higher response rate. 3.6.2 Description of the sample

From the companies that initially confirmed their willingness to participate and additional companies that showed interest after been approached by the research team, 13 BOF (out of a total of 37 within the EU) and 33 EAF plant sites (out of a total of 183 within the EU) were requested to provide data. The selection of these plant sites was based on the sampling strategy in order to ensure that the country-specific steel

82 production shares within the EU, both for EAF and BOF technologies, were represented in an adequate manner.

From the approached plant sites, initially 9 BOF and 19 EAF plant sites confirmed their participation in the study. In the end, 5 BOF and 17 EAF plant sites responded and provided filled-out questionnaires. The missing 6 steel plant sites did not provide data due to many different reasons, e.g. time constraints, confidentiality issues and internal company issues. One of the responding BOF plant sites comprises three BOF plant sites and one out of the responding EAF plant sites comprises two EAF plant sites, bringing the number of respondents, in fact, up to 7 BOF plant sites and 18 EAF plant sites.

Table 15 and Table 16 show an overview of the different replies by BOF and EAF plant sites, which were approached by the research team.

Table 15. Overview of the BOF plant sites approached by the research team

Region Number of plants _contacted Confirmation to _{participate participate} Refusal to Respondents

NWE 8 5 1 2

SE 2 1 1 0

CEE 3 3 0 3

Total 13 9 2 5

Source: Authors’ own elaboration.

Table 16. Overview of the EAF plant sites approached by the research team

Region Number of plants _contacted Confirmation to _{participate participate} Refusal to Respondents

NWE 23 15 2 13

SE 8 2 5 2

CEE 2 2 0 2

Total 33 19 7 17

Source: Authors’ own elaboration.

Out of the 22 plant sites that submitted data, 15 are situated in NWE, 2 are situated in SE and 5 are situated in CEE. Consequently, the respondents do not represent and cover Southern Europe sufficiently (see Figure 19: Italy alone already comprises 37 EAF and 2 BOF plant sites). In general, steel plant sites from Southern Europe, especially from Italy, were not interested in participating in the study.

In order to assess in how far the responding steel plant sites are representative for the entire European BOF and EAF steel industry, the research team introduced two indicators:

 Regional representativeness. Respondents’ regional capacity shares in

total respondents’ capacity expressed as a percentage are compared with the “true” regional capacity shares within the EU. If the figures are similar, the regional representativeness of the responding plant sites can be considered high.

 Regional coverage. If the respondents’ regional capacity represents more

than 10% of all capacity from that region, the regional representativeness can be considered high.

83 Table 17 and Table 18 show the total regional capacity, the total regional capacity shares and the respondents’ regional capacity as well as the derived representativeness indicators, i.e. regional representativeness and regional coverage, for all BOF and EAF steel plant sites respectively.

Table 17. Regional representativeness and coverage of responding BOF plant sites Region Total regional capacity (kt/a) Total regional capacity shares (%) Respondents’ regional capacity (kt/a) Regional representativeness (%): Regional coverage (%): NWE 83,340 69.7% 6500 39.9% 7.8% SE 16,900 14.1% 0 0.0% 0.0% CEE 19,250 16.1% 9800 60.1% 50.9% Total EU 119,490 100.0% 16300 100.0% 13.6%

Source: Authors’ own elaboration.

Table 18. Regional representativeness and coverage of responding EAF plant sites Region Total regional capacity (kt/a) Total regional capacity shares (%) Respondents’ regional capacity (kt/a) Regional representativeness (%): Regional coverage (%): NWE 37,059 37.6% 8270 73.4% 22.3% SE 48,280 48.9% 1700 15.1% 3.5% CEE 13,345 13.5% 1300 11.5% 9.7% Total EU 98,684 100.0% 11270 100.0% 11.4%

Source: Authors’ own elaboration.

Regarding the regional representativeness, the responding BOF plant sites are biased towards CCE, which represent 60.1% of total responding BOF capacity instead of only 16.1% under the total regional capacity shares within the EU. NWE is underrepresented with 39.9% (total regional capacity share would be 69.7%). SE is not represented at all.

EAF plant sites from CEE represent 11.5% of responding EAF plant sites, being almost identical to the total regional capacity share of 13.5%. NWE, however, is largely overrepresented (with 73.4% instead of 37.6%), whereas SE is significantly underrepresented.

Regarding the regional coverage, it can be noted that the responding BOF plant sites cover more than half of the total BOF capacity in CEE (50.9%). SE, in contrast, is not covered at all. In NWE, 7.8% of total BOF capacity is covered.

In terms of EAF plant sites, the responding EAF plant sites cover 22.3% of NWE, 9.7% of CEE and 3.5% of SE capacities.

Overall, based on capacity shares of responding plant sites, Southern Europe is significantly underrepresented and has a low coverage for both BOF and EAF plant

84 sites. North-Western Europe, in contrast, is underrepresented for BOF and overrepresented for EAF plant sites. Central-Eastern Europe is overrepresented in terms of its BOF capacity, while it has a very high representativeness in terms of its EAF capacity.

The respondents provided detailed figures on the level and structure of energy prices as well as on energy consumption. This data was validated through expert judgement (on energy prices, energy intensities, economic indicators etc.), follow-up phone calls as well as cross-checks via energy statistics from Eurostat and energy price publications. Out of the 22 respondents, only one plant site was willing to share energy bills with the research team. For this reason, energy bills could not be used to evaluate the accuracy of all data the respondents provided.

Table 19 presents the number of questionnaires used in the analysis of each section. There were substantial data gaps in the submitted questionnaires, in particular for the key performance indicators.

Table 19. Number of questionnaires used in each section

Total number received Total number usable9 Energy price

trends components Energy bill intensity Energy International comparison

Production costs and

margins

22 22 ≤22 (elec.) _{≤20 (gas)} ≤16 (elec.) _{≤15 (gas)} ≤20 (elec.) _{≤18 (gas)} ≤3 (elec.) _{≤3 (gas)} ≤18 Source: Authors’ own elaboration.

The research team asked producers to communicate the prices they paid for electricity and natural gas between 2008 and 2015, notwithstanding the years 2009 and 2011. The figures exclude VAT and other recoverable costs.

All energy prices reported in this section, and used throughout the analysis are net- prices, as reported on energy bills: exemptions or reductions for specific components are counted in. However, tax rebates, subsidy schemes or other financial compensation mechanisms that are not visible in bills are not accounted for due to a lack of data on these elements.