Few other jobs in the global steel industry are as challenging as the one facing Frank Pannier, the newly appointed chief executive of the Kazakhstan operations of ArcelorMittal, the world’s biggest steel maker.

Mr Pannier, a 42-year-old German with an academic background in economics, has just taken over the top job at ArcelorMittal’s huge Karmet works in Temirtau, by a long way the country’s biggest steel plant.