Day: 31 August 2020

EUROMETAL says activity at European distributors continued to be subdued in June, despite a marginal recovery compared with the low levels registered in May.

Steel service centres, for example, saw June activity drop by -16.5% year-on-year. In May the drop was twice as much, at -38.5% y-o-y. In the first six months of the year, however, the numbers indicate activity was down over -20% y-o-y, Kallanish notes.

Proximity and multi-products distributors, meanwhile, again showed more resilience. In June their activity dropped -10.2% y-o-y, bringing the total fall registered in January-June to -13.1% y-o-y.

Schmolz+Bickenbach has invited its shareholders to an extraordinary general meeting at which it will decide on a change to its nominal share value and future company name.

The maker of special bar quality steels intends to lower the nominal share price value of its stock from the current CHF 0.30 ($0.33) to CHF 0.15, Kallanish hears. It says it will allocate the amount of the nominal value reduction to reserves and to offset it to eliminate the adverse balance.

The move is one of various options to provide the company with additional financial resources. It comes in reaction to the net loss of around CHF 0.5 billion the group suffered even before the coronavirus crisis had kicked in, and the price loss its stock has suffered since.

The group also wants to change its brand name to Swiss Steel, which has so far denoted only its mill in Emmenbrücke, Switzerland. The rebranding is part of the comprehensive transformation process that the company is currently pushing forward, it says.

“It is essential that this change is also reflected in the brand and name of the company,” the group states. “A new name signals a new beginning and a clear, future-oriented positioning as a strong company with headquarters and stock exchange listing in Switzerland.”

Wuppermann Hungary has completed the €2.5 million ($3m) revamp of its hot-dip galvanizing line, thereby increasing its capacity to 750,000 tonnes/year. The move also brings productivity and quality improvements, Kallanish learns from the firm’s German parent company.

The work on the Györ plant, established in 2016, involved the extension of the air and water cooling system, the transformer and the induction unit. This significantly increased the speed and capacity of the plant, says coil processor and tubemaker Wuppermann.

“By modifying the plant, the product range of Wuppermann Hungary can now also be further developed,” the firm says. “The focus here is on the further expansion of the portfolio of zinc-magnesium coated products, as well as the extension of the high zinc coating requirements.”

In May Wuppermann Hungary started up a fully automatic packaging line for slit strips. “An integrated sorting and stacking management enables a wide variety of packaging options for the slit,” Wuppermann observes.

The Hungarian site’s previous galv capacity was 500,000 t/y. It can produce HDG in thickness of 1-6mm and width of 600-1,650mm, with coating of Z50-Z1,000.

The World Trade Organisation has established an official dispute panel to review the complaint lodged by Turkey against EU safeguard measures on steel imports.

The EU tried to block the dispute panel from being convened over the summer, but the WTO eventually accepted Turkey’s request. Turkey has been most penalised by the recent review of safeguard measures which became effective since the beginning of July, Kallanish notes.

“The EU said it firmly believes its measures are justified and in line with WTO rules,” the WTO release explains. The US, Switzerland, Norway, the UK, Ukraine, Russia, Argentina, Canada, China, Korea, Japan, Brazil, and India have all nevertheless reserved their third-party rights to participate in the proceedings, it adds.

Shanghai-listed Baosteel, during a news conference held Aug. 28, said China’s major steel end-users will continue recovering in the second half of the year, driving China’s crude steel production 4% higher year on year in 2020 to 1.04 billion metric tons – the first time the country’s annual steel production would breach 1 billion mt.

Baosteel expects China’s vehicle production to drop 6% year on year to 24.2 million units in 2020, improving from a 11.8% year-on-year drop in January-July.

The year-on-year decline in home appliances production was also expected to narrow from double digits in H1 2020 to single digits in full-year 2020.

Production of air conditioners, washing machines, freezers and refrigerators over January-July dropped 8% year on year, improving from the 11% drop in January-June, China’s National Bureau of Statistics data showed.

Meanwhile, China’s property and infrastructure sectors will continue to provide firm steel demand in H2, benefiting long steel, as well as flat steel products used in infrastructure projects, such as in bridges, wind mills and hydropower plants, according to Baosteel.

The company expects long steel prices to be well supported through H2, while Q3 is likely to be the strongest quarter in 2020 for the flat steel market.

China’s 14th five-year plan

Baosteel said further development of China’s vehicle manufacturing, especially for new energy vehicles, will be one of the focus points under the 14th five-year plan covering 2021-2025, boosting demand for high strength and ultra-high strength steel products, as well as non-oriented silicon steel, in the next five years.

Baosteel also expects to benefit from the development of high-end manufacturing sectors, such as ultra-high voltage power transmission and transformation, new energy, rail traffic and chemical engineering.

Meanwhile, China will promote a “dual-cycle” economic development pattern in the 2021-2025 period, which would prioritize “internal circulation” to “external circulation,” meaning domestic consumption will gain more policy support.

The “internal circulation” will be beneficial to Baosteel, as 90% of its steel production is currently consumed in the home market, while 10% is for exports, the company said.

Baosteel’s H1 performance

Baosteel’s net profit dropped 37% year on year to Yuan 4 billion ($583 million) over January-June. Its net profit in Q2 increased 60% month on month to Yuan 2.46 billion, but was still about 32% lower year on year.

In H1, its pig iron output dropped 4% year on year to 21.99 million mt, with crude steel output down 3% to 23.46 million mt. The declines were mainly due to the permanent shutdown of its subsidiary Wuhan Iron & Steel’s No. 1 blast furnace with 1.8 million mt/year capacity, in October 2019.

However, Baosteel’s pig iron and crude steel production is set to increase again in 2021 by 2 million mt, due to commissioning of the third blast furnace at Zhanjiang steelworks in southern Guangdong province in July 2021.

The blast furnace will have pig iron capacity of 4.1 million mt/year, and the steelmaking facilities will have production capacities of 4.5 million mt/year of hot-rolled coils and 1.66 million mt/year of cold-rolled coils.

Baosteel said China’s steel industry has remained scattered, and overcapacity has persisted, adding that its parent Baowu Steel Group will continue pushing ahead with its mergers and acquisitions strategy.

On Aug. 21, Baowu had signed an agreement to take a 51% stake in major stainless steel producer Taiyuan Iron & Steel, or TISCO, worth Yuan 14.5 billion ($2.1 billion), which will take its combined crude steel capacity to 111 million mt/year from about 98.5 million mt/year currently.

— Analyst Jing Zhang

In den ersten sechs Monaten des Jahres gingen die Stahllieferungen der europäischen Stahlservicecenter um 21,8 Prozent zurück. Bei den Flachprodukten fiel die Menge um 16,5 Prozent. Die Liefertage beliefen sich auf 84 Tage, verglichen mit 79 Tagen im Juni 2019.

Die Gesamtlieferungen der Mehrproduktstähle gingen im Jahresvergleich um 13,1 Prozent zurück, lediglich Betonstahl erfuhr eine höhere Nachfrage.

Quelle: Eurometal