German Klockner & Co’s Q1 steel shipments down 4% on year

Germany’s Klockner & Co said May 3 its first-quarter shipments of steel products totaled 1.21 million mt, up from 1.05 million mt in Q4 2022 as demand improved but lower than the 1.26 million mt seen in Q1 2022.

It expected the economic environment to remain challenging through 2023 but said macroeconomic conditions have improved compared to the second half of 2022.

Thus, the company expected full-year 2023 shipments to increase considerably while sales revenue was set to fall due to lower prices.

Klockner & Co’s Q1 sales were down 12.5% year on year to Eur2.1 billion ($2.3 billion) but were up from Eur2.0 billion in Q4.

Hot-rolled coil in Northwest Europe ranged from Eur685/mt to Eur855/mt during Q1, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights data, down from Eur922/mt to Eur1,390/mt in Q1 2022.

“We made a very good start to the new year, despite the ongoing challenging environment, and have made continuous progress in the implementation of our Group strategy over the first few months,” CEO Guido Kerkhoff said.

“With the introduction of the Nexigen PCF Algorithm, we are now able to calculate the product carbon footprint for nearly all of our products. In this way, we are tangibly helping our customers to achieve their decarbonization goals.”

Klockner & Co is now able to calculate the product carbon footprint for almost all its 200,000 products thanks to the introduction of Nexigen PCF Algorithm that aims to enables customers to make informed purchase decisions based on scientifically established emissions data that is comparable across producers.

Platts, part of S&P Global, launched a Northwest European hot-rolled coil carbon-accounted steel assessment May 2. The price was assessed at Eur920/mt ex-works Ruhr on its first day.

The assessment consisted of Platts daily carbon-accounted steel premium, assessed at Eur100/mt on May 2, and Platts daily hot-rolled coil price assessment in Northwest Europe, which was Eur820/mt ex-works Ruhr on May 2.

Author Annalisa Villa