The latest data published by European stockholders and traders association EUROMETAL confirms the recovery of activity for European distributors accelerated further in November last year.
European flat steel service centres saw their shipments increase 8.9% year-on-year in November, more than double the recovery pace of 3.3% y-o-y registered in October. Despite the pick-up, overall activity during January-November 2020 was down -12% y-o-y, Kallanish notes.
Multi-products and proximity distributors saw their shipments increase only 3.4% y-o-y in November, but the slump in their January-November deliveries remained below -10% y-o-y.
Stock levels at both SSC and multi-products distributors were down in November compared with the same period of 2019, indicating that overstocking is still not taking place.
