Origins and growth under communism The genesis of the project took place during the
communist regime on a July morning in 1974, when dictator
Nicolae Ceaușescu, returning from a visit to
Constanța, stopped at the garbage mound at the edge of Călărași and decided a steel mill would be built there. Plans were drawn up, construction being delayed the following year mainly due to floods. The first stake was driven in March 1976, although building, engineered by
Bucharest, did not begin in earnest until 1978. A foreign loan totaling over
$100 million was taken out, and the factory was inaugurated in 1979. Covering on the
Borcea branch of the
Danube, 6,000 workers were initially hired. During the 1980s, although equipped with a unit for purifying emissions, the works were lacking in environmental safeguards. A reddish dust settled on Călărași, and whenever a charge of steel was converted, the noise was loud. Local rumor suggests that a dispute over pollution arose with neighboring
Bulgaria. Privatization, directed by the , cost the government at least $100 million and a lengthy series of infractions was committed during its course. The works ended up being sold at a nominal cost to an Italian group that, rather than make promised investments, went on to sell them to
Tenaris. In 1997, upgrades unique to Romania were made to the rolling mill and the electric steel mill, with parts imported from Germany, Austria, and Scotland. In 2000, Siderca filed for bankruptcy, a procedure that was suspended in 2001 for four years, during which attempts were made to place the enterprise on a better footing. In 2003, Donasid took over the viable parts, evaluated at $20 million: the steel mill, the
continuous casting unit, and the rolling mill for heavy products and railway tracks. Siderca contributed and the administrative building. In 2005, Siderca re-entered bankruptcy, while Donasid was acquired by Tenaris. In September 2020, the Donalam company announced that it would invest
€11.3 million in the modernization of its rolling mill in Călărași. A new heating furnace and a water treatment system were planned; improved technology would contribute to reducing carbon emissions by up to 40%. The Donalam Călărași mill exports annually about 120,000 tons of steel bars to the European market. As of May 2021, the company had 270 employees, and was looking to hire 60 more, in order to meet growing international demand for steel products. The ruins of the works and reminiscences of their heyday play a prominent role in the 2013 film
Sunt o babă comunistă. ==Notes==