Sales by Germany’s stockholding distributors in the first quarter totalled 823,000 tonnes, which is 12% lower than in the corresponding previous-year quarter, Kallanish learns from their federation, BDS.
The difference is even more pronounced when looking at the most recent month of the statistics, March, when sales were only 817,00t, compared with 1.05 million tonnes in March 2023.
Looking at the main product groups, the drop was less steep in the category of flat products than for long products. Sales of flat products in Q1 fell by not quite 7% to 522,000t. Against that, long products plummeted by 22% to 298,000t.
This reflects the slowdown of business in construction, the main customer sector of long products like rebar and structural steel, which deteriorated further throughout 2023. The segment was also affected by a peaking of power prices last year, as most long products are made at electric arc furnace mills.
The total tonnage also considers “other products” like wire rod.
Inventories at the end of March stood at 1.96mt, which was considerably below the 2.23mt seen a year earlier. Flat product inventories were at 1.29mt versus 1.4mt last year, while longs were down from 779,000t to 646,000t.
Christian Koehl Germany
