European steel distributors association EUROMETAL registered in August a clear sign of improvement for flat steel service centres. They posted monthly figures more or less in line with the ones registered in August 2019, after many months of steep contraction.
According to the latest data seen by Kallanish, flat steel service centres saw their shipments decrease only -1.5% year-on-year August. During the first eight months of the year the reduction remained, though, at -18.7% y-o-y.
Shipments by multi-products steel distributors, in contrast, were down -13.2% y-o-y during January-August, with a steep fall of -12.7% being recorded in August alone.
According to sources, September was the first month in which the steel market across Europe operated at pre-pandemic levels; future figures by EUROMETAL are expected to confirm this trend.
