The World Steel Association recently published two important sets of data. The first, published about a week ago are the latest figures for crude steel production by country through March of 2009. You can see and use that data in the Nerds spreadsheet below. In aggregate it shows an 8.3% improvement in global output March over February.
The second document which was published today, is worldsteel’s short term forecast for apparent steel use by major world country. This is the first such short term forecast for some time and it’s a welcome contribution to the assessment of how 2009 might turn out from a good many of the world’s steel companies. The current forecast shows a 14.9% decline in world steel consumption in 2009 to 1,019MT.
Since the crude steel production data indicates production equivalent to consumption (yielded at 90%) of about 237MT in the first quarter (and ignoring inventory changes), the apparent consumption forecast implies consumption in the next three quarters of 782MT or 260MT a quarter. In other words, we should expect only a modest increase (say 10%) in global steel production rates for the rest of the year, again ignoring any inventory re-build. Here’s the forecast consumption document in PDF format: Apparent Steel Use by Country, April 2009 Forecast
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Based on recorded import licenses, flat products imports into the US dropped 6% from 548,000 short tons in February to 515,000 tons in March.
This minor change in the total imports volume masks more significant volume changes in individual products. Cut plate imports continued their sharp decline dropping 50% between February and March to 36,000 tons, mainly due to reduced volume from Thailand, Sweden, Turkey and So. Korea. In the same period cold rolled imports dropped 17% to 99,000 tons, in this case mainly due to lower tonnage from Brazil. And finally, hot dip galvanized imports increased 33% to 126,000 tons in March, due to a sharp rise from Australia and India.
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