European stockholding distributors and steel service centres have conceded some share of the coil market to mills and their direct supply to consumers. This applies to cold rolled and galvanized coil more than to plain hot rolled coil, Kallanish learns from statistics issued by distributors association EUROMETAL.
“Direct mill sales improve their channel position gradually the further wide strips are upgraded by cold rolling and coating,” the association writes in a recent research paper.
Of all HRC sales in the EU, the share of mill sales directly to customers in 2023 was 23%, while that of steel service centres was 40%. The statistics also consider “mill sales as pre-material” – such as for tubemakers – which took a 24% share. The remainder (13%) was sold by stockholding distributors – Multi-Product & Proximity Steel Distribution – which play a lesser role in terms of volume.
The picture shifts for further processed coil. For CRC, mills took a share of 41%, with 42% taken by SSCs. Mill sales as pre-material obviously play a lesser role for processed coil; the share of CRC here is a mere 6%. Mills score highest on coated coil, with a share of 49%, against 30% taken by SSCs.
In total, of all strip products taken together, mills, in their direct-to-customer sales, lifted their share from 34% in 2021 to 36% in 2023, totalling 22 million tonnes. The share of SSCs in that two-year period dropped by the same rate, from 38% to 36%, also totalling 22mt.
EUROMETAL notes that distributors play an overall bigger role in sales of long products, for which they account for 75% of total EU supply (see European distributors lose volume in 2020s – 20 August).
Christian Koehl Germany
