European steel imports continue to rise in October

European Union imports of both long and flat products continued to increase in October, while exports remained well below the levels registered last year, Kallanish learns from data published by European steelmakers’ association Eurofer.

Overall imports of flat products surpassed 2 million tonnes in October, an increase of over 400,000t compared with October 2017. Monthly volumes of flat imports have continued to increase year-on-year since June 2018 compared to those in 2017. This confirms that the implementation of the new US tariffs on steel have had an impact on the global trade of steel into Europe.

Long products’ imports also increased again in October, jumping by almost 200,000t y-o-y to 752,000t.

During the January-October period imports of flat and long products reached almost 25mt, growing by 2.7mt y-o-y. Nearly 2mt of the additional imported products in Europe were long products, but flats also grew compared to the already-high levels registered in 2017.

The jump in imports happened as European producers saw their exports of flat and long products decrease during the first ten months of the year. Overall exports reached 17.2mt during the January-October period, down 1.5mt compared with 2017.

Turkey remains the largest supplier of most steel products to the European market. The country supplied almost 270,000 tonnes/month during the first ten months of the year to Europe, for example, followed by Russia at some 150,000 t/m.

Turkey continued to be the largest importer of European steel products during the first ten months of 2018, with the US in second place. Algeria, historically a major client for Europe, saw its imports fall by around 1mt to just above 650,000t during the first ten months of 2018.