Complete Steel Collection
The forecast for late 2009 and early 2010
3. 11. 2009
The pace of decline in steel production in Europe has slowed in each quarter this year and slow growth in 2010 would be likely to accelerate in 2011, according to the latest market outlook by the steel lobby Eurofer.
“While the economy probably reached a turning point, the EU steel market will remain stuck in slow motion for the time being,” said director general Gordon Moffat.
So far this year, imports have been at much reduced levels compared with 2007 and 2008. However, Moffat warned: “Global crude steel production increasing in anticipation of a recovery in steel demand which yet has to materialise remains a major risk for the EU supply-demand balance”.
Prospects for the EU’s steel using sectors, such as automotive and the construction sector, remain subdued. “Despite stabilising financial markets, financing is still a bottleneck for many companies. Industrial orders are still weak despite some inventory replenishment,” he said.
The group expects steel output to slump 18% in 2009.
Next year there should be output growth from Q2 and a gain of 0.9% for the year, followed by a 4% increase in 2011, said Eurofer.
In construction, the short-term outlook remains rather grim, said Eurofer. “The civil engineering sector awaits the potential impulse from increased public spending; so far, the positive effect has been limited to renovation work but is expected to spread to new projects in 2010.”
The president of Eurofer and CEO of Voestalpine Wolfgang Eder said this week that China could damage the delicate stabilisation in the steel market by ramping up its exports. “Overall the order intake has stabilised. There is a slight upward trend, we are at full capacity,” he said. “But overall it is on very, very thin ice. We fear that there will be huge exports out of China in the first half of the year.” Voestalpine’s flat steel division started to run at full capacity “almost overnight” in September, after running at only 60% of capacity during the spring, Eder said. Production in Q2 and Q3 was down by 30% year-on-year to 450,000t/month on average.
Source: EUROFER
