150 Years of Peine Quality - Memories of the Start of Operations
The history of the Peine steel site began with the founding of the "Aktiengesellschaft Peiner Walzwerk". Almost in passing, a report on the beginnings of this company states: "In May 1873, the plant was opened". There does not appear to have been a ceremonial commissioning of the first Peine mill facilities.
The joint-stock company had already been founded a year earlier, on April 7, 1872. It was to process the pig iron that Ilseder Hütte AG had been producing for more than ten years in its blast furnace plant in Groß-Ilsede, just a few kilometers away, but which had until then largely been sold to the distant Westphalia.
The first plants to go into operation in Peine were several puddling furnaces for the production of wrought iron and welding and rolling lines for bar iron. The beginnings took place during a period of economic weakness, but the company management was nevertheless able to state in its first annual report "with satisfaction" that "the preconditions on which the foundation of our establishment was based have already proved to be correct during the first period of operation".
150 years have passed since production began in Peine this year. The Aktien-Gesellschaft Peiner Walzwerk ceased to exist a long time ago; it was taken over by the Ilseder Hütte in 1880 and dissolved in the early 1930s. Today, Ilseder Hütte is also known to many only as the predecessor company of Salzgitter AG. The steel site Peine, however, has developed continuously and successfully. Since 2001, it has continued to write its tradition-steeped history under the name Peiner Träger GmbH and now plays an important role in the decarbonization strategy of the Salzgitter Group. Since 2021, for instance, Peiner Träger GmbH has been producing the input material for low CO2 flat steel grades manufactured by the Group's sister company Salzgitter Flachstahl GmbH. In addition, Peiner Träger GmbH offers its customers "green steel beams" with a low CO2 footprint, for which green electricity is used.
