Steel distributors across Europe have begun 2019 with disappointing figures, confirming the bleak sentiment reported by market observers, Kallanish learns from the latest data published by EUROMETAL.
Flat steel service centres saw their shipments fall by -4.5% year-on-year in January, continuing the negative trend registered since the end of last year.
EUROMETAL calculates that stock levels at steel service centres ended January at a lower level than in January 2019, signalling that a destocking activity also took place during the month.
General proximity distributors, majoring in long products’ distribution, also saw their shipments fall by -6.2% y-o-y in January, confirming that the weakness was visible across the range of all products in Europe. “Only profiles and hot rolled flats registered higher shipments,” EUROMETAL says.
