Venezuelan state-owned steelmaker Sidor will see production of 1Mt this year, less than 25% of its capacity, according to the president of steel industry association ACES, Omar Martnez.

“We’ve proposed a series of measures to improve the situation at the company, but the government doesn’t listen to anyone, they’re deaf,” Martnez told BNamericas.

In March, Sidor’s interim labor director Jhony Luna told BNamericas that the company expected production and shipments to be down 40% this year.

Last year Sidor, which has suffered numerous problems including government-enforced energy cutbacks, produced 2.7Mt of steel compared to the planned 3.8Mt.

The Sidor plant, located in Ciudad Guayana, is the country’s largest steel mill with liquid steel capacity of 4.2Mt/y. The company was nationalized nearly two years ago and was previously controlled by Luxembourg-based but Latin America-focused steel company Ternium (NYSE: TX).

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