Day: 30 August 2020

Flat steel shipments from EU service centers fell by 21.8% year on year in the first half of 2020 while stocks rose, service center and distributors’ association EUROMETAL reported Aug. 28.

Stockholders’ distribution of multi-product & proximity steel — including long steel products — fell 13.1% over the same period. Stocks of these products at the end of June were lower than a year earlier, it said.

Flat products

In June, strip mill products shipments fell 16.5% on the year, a smaller percentage drop than the 38.5% in May, EUROMETAL said.

Expressed in days of shipments, stocks at EU steel service centers reached 84 days’ worth of shipments in June 2020, compared with 79 days in June 2019, the association reported.

Multi-products

In H1, EU multi-product and proximity steel stockholding distribution registered lower shipments for almost all products of its portfolio, with only rebar shipments increasing in the period, EUROMETAL said.

In June, these steel products shipments fell 10.2% from June 2019, it said.

Expressed in days of shipments, stock volumes of these products leveled in June 2020 at 81 days’ worth of shipments, down from 83 days in June 2019, the association said.

— Diana Kinch

Stainless steel group Outokumpu is testing the waters for new activities that may involve powder metallurgy and could be located in Germany.

German press reports suggest that the company might be building a new production facility at its strip mill in Krefeld, and that it is currently looking for a partner for such a project.

Upon request by Kallanish, a spokesperson of the company states that there are not many details to share yet, due to the status of the project.

“In line with our efforts to develop our operations and products, Outokumpu is continuously monitoring the markets for new business opportunities such as metal powder,” she says.

She confirms that the company is discussing a possible partnership with one of the market key players in this segment. As the planning process is still on-going, it won’t comment on further details at this point.

NLMK La Louvière has begun the pre-assembly of three new finishing mill stands for its hot strip mill upgrade, Russian parent NLMK tells Kallanish.

This will enable the company to expand the production of thinner, stronger and more environmentally friendly steel for customers in the EU. Investment amounted to EUR 150 million ($178 million).

The pre-assembly is planned to last until November, then dismantling of the old finishing mill stands will begin, followed by the installation of the pre-assembled and tested new ones. The finishing mill stands are supplied by Primetals, which was awarded the contract to modernise the hot strip mill in 2019.

The project will enable the mill to expand the production of high-strength, thin hot-rolled coil as thin as 1.2mm, NLMK says. It will also increase the range of high-strength products beyond 1,000 MPa yield strength and provide customers with best-in-class surface and dimensional tolerances.

The first phase of the mill transformation is scheduled for completion by the end of 2020, and the second phase will be completed in 2021.

Belgium-based La Louvière produces coil from slab supplied by NLMK’s principal Russian Lipetsk site. The supply volume is approximately 1.6 million tonnes/year.

NLMK’s consolidated steel output and sales were impacted in the second quarter by declining demand in its traditional sales markets due to the Covid-19 pandemic (see Kallanish passim). It expects lower on-year steel output at Lipetsk in Q3 because of major overhauls.

Consolidated output of crude steel decreased to 3.9mt in Q2, down by -8% on-quarter and -3% on-year due to lower capacity utilisation rates at NLMK Russia Long Products and NLMK USA.

Southeast Europe (SEE) crude steel production continued to decrease in January-July, according to the latest worldsteel data monitored by Kallanish. Regional output amounted to 2.002 million tonnes, down by -28.7% year-on-year.

In the first half of the year regional production had fallen -25.8% on-year to 1.82mt.

Serbia was again the largest steel producer among the seven countries of SEE, which also include Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia, North Macedonia and Moldova.

Serbia’s production of crude steel totalled 857,000t in January-July, down by -26.7% y-o-y.

The second-largest producer in the region, Bulgaria, saw its crude steel output fell -20.5% to 280,000t.

Third-largest steel producer Slovenia saw production of 324,000t, down by -14.8% y-o-y.

Fourth-largest Bosnia and Herzegovina saw its crude steel output down by -37.1% to 305,000t.

The fifth-largest steel producer, Moldova, produced 162,000t, down by -24.7% y-o-y.

Although Serbia’s crude steel production decreased, construction growth provides a positive outlook for the country’s steel industry, according to long steelmaker Metalfer (see Kallanish passim). The Serbian government stepped up construction projects in the run up to the general election, which the ruling party of President Aleksandar Vucic won in the early summer.

Seaborne iron ore prices steadied on Friday. Port stocks continue to resume, but the iron ore sector remains more firm than steel.

The Kallanish KORE 62% Fe index gained $0.12/t to $122.52/dry metric tonne cfr Qingdao. The Kallanish KORE 65% Fe index gained $0.13/t to $133.27/dmt cfr, and the KORE 58% Fe index slipped $0.39/t to $110.27/dmt cfr. On the Dalian Commodity Exchange, January 2021 iron ore settled up CNY 1.5/t at CNY 822.5/t ($119.62/t). On the Singapore Exchange, September 62% Fe futures settled up $2.42/t at $120.18/t, while the same contract for 65% Fe and 58% Fe futures settled up $2.3/t at $133.31/t, and down $1.19/t at $107.77/t respectively. In Tangshan, billet prices gained CNY 10/t to CNY 3,410/t.

Iron ore port stocks resumed their increase last week, but did not make up the decline the previous week. Across 35 ports, stocks were up 900,000t last week to 105.89 million tonnes, according to a count by SMM. Deliveries from port stocks slowed down, in part because of restrictions in Tangshan, and in part because of the disruption of Typhoon Bavi. Some restocking from mills is therefore likely to resume in the coming week.

Data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) meanwhile shows that the ferrous mining sector has seen profits surge. Ferrous mining profits were up 24.3% year-on-year at CNY 16.54 billion over January-June. The growth rate was second only to computers and electronics. The ferrous smelting and rolling sector by contrast saw profits fall 32% to CNY 110.69 billion over the same period.