Stockholding: German steel sales rise 5.6% in March as stocks fall
Steel product sales in the German distribution and stockholding system rose 5.6% year over year to 863,963 mt in March on restocking, as inventories fell 4.7% to 1,886,182 mt , data from German steel stockholders’ association BDS showed April 24.
Sales of long steel products fell to 250,858 mt in March, from 254,763 mt in the same month last year, while flat sales increased to 533,267 mt from 496,755 mt. Other steel products climbed to 79,838 mt from 65,948 mt.
Stocks of long steel products fell last month to 659,410 mt from 646,239 mt reached a year ago, while inventories of steel flat products decreased to 1,189,091 mt from 1,288,941 mt. Other steel products dropped to 37,681 mt from 44,353 mt.
In March Germany produced 3.1 million mt of steel products, falling 11.7% year over year, the third consecutive month of double-digit decline for the country’s steel industry. Germany’s blast furnace steel producers registered the biggest drop in output, down 14.8% year over year to 2.1 million mt. Steel producers using electric arc furnaces produced 3.5% less crude steel in March at 1.1 million mt.
Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, assessed hot-rolled coil in Northwest Europe at Eur640/mt ($728/mt) base ex-works Ruhr March 31, up from Eur560/mt at the start of the year, with mills cutting production to sustain higher prices.
Platts assessed HRC in Northwest Europe at Eur655/mt EXW Ruhr April 23, up Eur5 day over day, and in Southern Europe at Eur625/mt EXW Italy, stable over the day.
German steel stockholders’ sales remain stable in 2024
Germany’s stockholding distributors sold a slightly higher tonnage of steel products in 2024 than a year earlier, according to figures from their federation, BDS.
At 9.435 million tonnes, the volume was fractionally up on 9.434mt in 2023. Monthly volumes appear to have been distributed more evenly in 2024 than 2023. In 2023, March sales of 994,000t were, for example, nearly 190,000t above April’s. December was typically the slowest month in both years, with just over 460,000t sold in each year, Kallanish notes.
Both main product categories, longs and flats, lost tonnages somewhat from 2023 to 2024, while “other products” gained. Long products sales in 2024 totalled 2.828mt and flat products came to 5.766mt.
By contrast, “other products” rose by around 140,000t to 841,000t in 2024. This category encompasses wire rod and other products that are not particularly defined in the statistics.
Christian Koehl Germany
BDS: German steel sales slump, stocks hit 3-year low as of Dec 2024
German total steel sales product fell 0.59% year over year in December 2024 to 462,264 mt, and down by 40.64% month over month, data from German steel stockholders’ association BDS showed on Jan. 22.
- Total steel sales in Dec 2024 drop 0.59% YOY to 462,264 mt
- Total steel stocks in Dec 2024 decline 3.96%YOY to 1.78 million mt
Last month, sales of the flat steel product category nearly halved to 281,045, down 40.23% from November and 3.05% from the same period in 2023, respectively.
Long sales also dropped to 136,204 mt, down from 143,297 mt in December 2023 and compared to 238,850 mt in November 2023, the data showed.
Other products stood at 45,015 mt in December 2024, down 40.9% year over year and 35.39% month over month.
The BDS data also showed that steel stocks in Germany went down year year over year and month month over month. Total German steel stocks products totalled 1.78 million mt in December 2024, slipping 3.96% compared to the same month of 2023 and down 1.54% from November 2024 to the lowest level since records started in January 2020.
Flat products decreased by 4.64% to 1.11 million mt in December, year over year, and by 2.77% month over month, respectively.
Long products stocks totaled 638,548 mt in December, down 2.10% year over year but up 0.95% month over month. The rest of the stocks under “Others” stood at 30,762 mt in December, down 6.42% compared to December 2023 and down 1.54% relative to November.
In December hot-rolled coil prices in Northern Europe moved sideways from Eur560/mt base ex-works Ruhr to Eur 560/mt ex-works Ruhr on Dec. 30, with prices that moved down by around Eur130/mt in 2024. Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, assessed hot-rolled coil in Northwest Europe at Eur580/mt ex-works Ruhr Jan.21, stable day over day
Kerschgens expands Stolberg site
German distributor Kerschgens is expanding its main site in Stolberg near Aachen, close to the borders of Belgium and the Netherlands.
The enlargement at Stolberg will mean the closure of the sites in nearby Würselen and in Viersen, some 70km further north, all in North Rhine Westphalia state. According to a manager, three houses in and around Viersen are mere distribution warehouses which the company established as hubs decades ago, and that do fit in the company’s current structure.
“It made little sense to invest in new storage technology at sites that do not meet today’s standards any more,” he tells Kallanish. The company is therefore building a new hall of 13,000m² with a modern high-bay warehouse in Stolberg for an overall investment of some €20 million ($22m), he says.
In its announcement of the groundbreaking ceremony last week, Kerschgens highlighted its acquisition of Carlier Blechbearbeitung, a sheet-working company, based in Aachen. Kerschgens says it plans to grow this activity further, and for that purpose needs to expand space. The company is a full-range distributor, with an emphasis on long products.
Following the acquisition of Carlier in 2022, Kerschgens employs 247 people at its sites in Stolberg, Aachen, Würselen, Bitburg and Trier, the latter two some 100km south in Rhineland-Palatinate.
Christian Koehl Germany
European distributors lose volume in 2020s
Geopolitical tensions, trade disputes and steel trade measures have disrupted formerly well consolidated supply channels, at the cost of stockholding distributors and service centres (SSCs), European distributors’ federation EUROMETAL says in a recent research paper.
The EU steel distribution sector has experienced a marked contraction, with business volumes decreasing from 77 million tonnes in 2021 to 62mt in 2023. The downturn was particularly pronounced in the Multi-Product & Proximity Steel Stockholding Distribution segment, which saw a reduction from 47mt in 2021 to 37mt in 2023. Service centres’ supply volume in 2023 was 25mt.
EUROMETAL assesses the overall European steel supply potential – what it calls the typical steel distribution product portfolio market – at 116mt in 2023. This compares with 117mt in the 2020 pandemic year, 138mt in 2021 and 121mt in 2022. However, of this total, nearly half is served by mills, with 54mt supplied from mills directly to end users in 2023.
The decline in recent years is attributed to a combination of factors, like the economic downturn, supply chain disruptions affecting production and consumption patterns, geopolitical tensions and trade disputes, EUROMETAL notes. However, “steel distribution remains a vital component of the supply chain, as it offers essential services such as stockholding, processing, and value-added solutions to customers,” the association affirms to Kallanish.
Looking at the typical product groups, EUROMETAL notes that service centres continue to be a major player, accounting for 44% or 21.9mt of strip product supplies to the general industry, automotive, and construction sectors. The end-user quarto plate market saw 3.8mt supplied by stockholders and SSCs, with 4.1mt sold directly by mills to end-user segments.
For long steel products, distributors maintain a dominant share of 75% (22.8mt) in supplying to end users, while direct mill sales to end users accounted for only 7.5mt. The market for tubular steel products, totalling 10.6mt in 2023, was equally supplied by EU steel distributors and direct mill sales, each accounting for 5.3mt.
Christian Koehl Germany
ThyssenKrupp Schulte to close seven sites
ThyssenKrupp Schulte will close seven sites as part of its restructuring drive, market sources told Argus today.
The company will close stockholding warehouses in Braunschweig, Rheine, Munich, Nuremberg, Freiberg, Mannheim and Frankfurt, according to multiple market sources.
Last month the company said it would be closing sites and cutting around 450 jobs, but did not reveal which sites would be affected.
“Fundamental structural adjustments are necessary to better respond to market changes in the future”, the company said when it announced the restructuring, citing declining materials demand and increasing demand for materials-related services. All the impacted locations are stockholding sites and do not provide additional processing.
ThyssenKrupp Schulte is part of ThyssenKrupp Materials Services and distributes stainless, carbon and non-ferrous metals from around 40 locations.
A ThyssenKrupp Materials Services spokesperson said it could not comment on the affected locations, as “discussions with the respective co-determination bodies have only just begun and the details of the transformation are the subject of these discussions”.
“At ThyssenKrupp Schulte we are aiming to transform the business model in order to increase the company’s profitability and enable Schulte to respond even better to changing customer needs,” the spokesperson added.
German steel product sales and stocks dip amid manufacturing slowdown
Steel product sales in the German distribution and stockholding system totaled 776,079 mt in July, down 0.7% from a year earlier, German steel stockholders’ association BDS reported Aug. 22
The July total was down 6.5% from the 829,612 mt sold in June, as the slowdown in German industrial production and weak demand weighed on the market.
Germany’s industrial output fell for a second consecutive month in June, with a drop of 1.5% on a monthly basis, worsening from the previous month’s dip of 0.1%.
Within the overall sales figures, monthly sales of long products totaled 244,917 mt, down 6.4% year on year and little changed from the prior month. Monthly sales of flat products were reported at 476,850 mt, up 3.9% on the year but down 9.1% on the month.
Weaker demand from stockists was also evident in the monthly steel inventories which fell 11.8% on the year to 2 million mt. Stocks of long products were reported at 684,005 mt, down 14.3% on the year and 2.1% lower on the month, while those of flat products were reported at 1.29 million mt, down 10.7% on the year but up 5.9% on the month.
Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, assessed domestic hot-rolled coil prices in Northern Europe at Eur635/mt ex-works Ruhr Aug. 21, down 35% since March 30.
Author: Euan Sadden
