EU distribution shipments fall in first quarter

Shipments from both steel service centres (SSC) and multi-products distributors moved downwards compared with last year in the first quarter of 2018, Kallanish learns from the latest data issued by European distributors’ association EUROMETAL.

Flat steel service centres saw shipments decrease by -1.9% year-on-year in Q1 2018.  When expressed in days of shipments, stocks at EU SSC averaged in March 2018 at 64 days against 60 days in March 2017. For same months, the index of stock volumes moved from 116 in March 2017 to 110 in March 2018 (average 2015 index = 100), EUROMETAL confirms.

Shipments by EU Multi-Product & Proximity Steel stockholding distributors slipped by -1.5% y-o-yin total. Long products shipments fell significantly, while shipments of coil, plate and tube saw an improvement compared with last year, says EUROMETAL without giving figures. Nevertheless, the improvement in these was not strong enough to offset the fall in longs.

The stock volumes index at EU multi-product & proximity steel stockholding distributors was 103 in March 2018, compared to 101 in the year-before period. When expressed in days of shipments, stock volumes in March 2018 levelled at 75 days, compared with 68 days in March 2017.

In comparison the market grew by 2.5% y-o-y for SSC and by 0.6% for multi-products distributors in Q1 2017, Kallanish notes.