During his presentation at the SteelOrbis 2025 Spring Conference & 92nd IREPAS Meeting held in Athens on April 27-29, Alexander Gordienko, export director of Spain’s CELSA Group, said that global GDP is projected to grow modestly at 3.3 percent in both 2025 and 2026, below historical trends but stable enough to maintain steady steel demand. According to the projections issued before the US initiated the tariff war, advanced economies’ GDP growth was expected at 1.8 percent (1.9 percent now) for 2025, while emerging markets were projected to grow by 4.2 percent, with Asia growing robustly by over five percent. He noted, “It is too soon to give results, but a global slowing down would be a reasonable expectation.” As for the GDP projection for the US, it has been reduced to 0.5-0.6 percent for 2025, while a slower US economy means low buying power and weak prices. Mr. Gordienko commented that, if the situation becomes that bad in the US, the policymakers there may be forced to introduce an emergency stimulus and reduce interest rates, which in turn might lift demand at the end of the year.
Regarding steel production, the CELSA official noted that, according to the worldsteel figures for 2024, global crude steel production was flat, while the share of electric arc furnaces rose to 31 percent, making scrap availability and pricing a central cost factor. In the first quarter this year, steel production in India and China increased, while Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia became key suppliers in the international market. Meanwhile, steel production in Iran, Africa, Turkey, the EU, the US and Russia registered declines. Stating that behind these figures there is a quiet shift, with the old centers of steel power declining, while the new ones are getting stronger, Mr. Gordienko said, “The story isn’t who makes more steel, but who can make it cheaper and keep spare export capacity.”
Noting that the factors such as global trade fragmentation, geopolitical risks, dual production routes and misaligned carbon policies cause the volatility in the market to be structural, Gordienko stated, “It is no longer an after-effect of recession or boom; it’s produced by the architecture of the market itself.” He stated that, when the two biggest world economies -the US and China - impose trade embargoes on each other, everyone will be affected and will have to choose a side.
Looking at the global long steel market, the Celsa official pointed out that China’s long product exports may continue growing amid steady or increasing production and the weak domestic market, leading every extra million tons of exports from China to take $5-7/mt off the global FOB-based benchmark prices. In the first quarter of 2025, global long product consumption grew slightly by 0.7 percent, driven largely by wire rod and merchant bars, while the share of rebar at 45 percent declined slowly, losing ground to wire rod and merchant bars. Stating that the spread between scrap and rebar prices has remained at $160-180/mt, Gordienko highlighted that this level, which looks acceptable on paper, is actually dangerous in volatile market conditions.
