Refrako's tender is successful

Global purchasing and procurement projects in the USA and in Europe, aiming to transform purchasing methods and organizational capacities and to maximize value for costs as a whole, whether regional or global, have been the focus of work of specialized teams for several months. One of the results of this initiative is the decision on the principal supplier of refractory materials for the USS steelworks in Kosice, Serbia and the USA. This will now be the private limited company Refrako, s.r.o. Trial supplies of refractory materials for Edgar Thompson performed very well indeed, because the durability of refractory linings using Kosice materials was 50 per cent higher than when local materials were applied. This means in addition that in the USA, Kosice and Serbia, Refrako will also be providing consultancy and technical services to its customers.

We have helped a good cause

Sixty-six boys and girls live in the Dobsina Children's Home, where an institutional transformation project began five years ago to create independent groups and satellites with the aim of making the children better prepared for life outside the home once they reach leaving age. Not everyone has somewhere to go, however, after finishing school, and so another project was born, the result of which should be the reconstruction of the buildings.
As the Children's Home Director Amalia Fundjova explains, this is planned to provide accommodation for eight such youngsters, but the way to its competion was blocked by lack of financial resources. For this reason they approached U. S. Steel Kosice with a request for material assistance in the form of new central-heating radiators... Yesterday afternoon, August 9th, representatives of the Dobsina Children's Home came to the U. S. Steel Kosice plant itself to collect the company's gift of ten radiator units.

Presov hosts European Conference on Deafblindness

Last week the city of Presov hosted the 6th Deafblind International European Conference on Deafblindness. The aim of this event named "Making the Invisible Visible" was to present the results achieved in the upbringing and education of deafblind children in Europe, to stimulate the development of services, education and job opportunities for people with these disabilities in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, and last but not least to raise the awareness of deafblindness in Slovakia and the wider European area, as well as enabling specialists and families of the disabled to engage in mutual exchange of experience. One of the sponsors of this event was our company U. S. Steel Kosice.

Attractive trial of strength for ice-hockey players

As part of their summer lead-up to the new Extra League season, since July 29th the players of Kosice Ice-hockey Club have been playing preparatory matches on the ice. In the first four friendly encounters they appeared in front of the home fans in Kosice, beginning the home series playing a match with Žilina, who they beat 2:0. This was followed by a planned and attractive trial of strength with the Czech Extra League teams from Vsetin, Trinec and Vitkovice.
They played three matches against these teams in the course of four days, which was a proper "grind" on the ice. Although the team is still in the completion stage and they are only warming up their play, with a very good performance last Tuesday, August 2nd, they whitewashed Vsetin 5:0, then on Wednesday, August 3rd, they lost 3:1 to Trinec, and on Friday, August 5th, the HC Kosice players culminated their pre-season challenge with their Czech opponents in a duel against Vitkovice, which they won 2:1. After our submissions deadline yesterday the Kosice team played a further home game against Poprad, and from tomorrow they will be taking part in the Rona Cup tournament in Trencin.