Thyssenkrupp dismisses report about potential job, capacity cuts

(Reuters) -German industrial conglomerate Thyssenkrupp on Wednesday said a media report about potential job and capacity cuts at its struggling steel division published earlier in the day was speculation.

Newspaper Handelsblatt earlier reported that a restructuring programme of the steel division, dubbed "Stream", may cost at least 5,000 jobs and reduce the business's production capacity to 8 million to 9 million tonnes per year, down from 11.5 million currently.

The report, which cited people familiar with the matter, said that Thyssenkrupp CEO Miguel Lopez had even proposed to the steel division's management a reduction to 6.5 million tonnes of capacity.

"We are astonished by the speculation expressed in Handelsblatt," Thyssenkrupp Steel Europe said in a statement, citing comments by its chairman earlier this week that the unit was working on restructuring proposals to be discussed with the relevant committees in mid-April.

"A 'Stream' project is just as non-existent as the group's planning target of 6.5 million tonnes."

Thyssenkrupp Steel Europe said any speculation at this point was "highly dubious" and stoked fears among its workforce.

(Reporting by Bartosz Dabrowski and Tom Kaeckenhoff in Duesseldorf; Writing by Christoph Steitz; Editing by Madeline Chambers and Nia Williams)