During December, Brazil's slab exports went up by 2 percent compared to November to 393,600 mt. The main exporters were ThyssenKrupp CSA (179,800 mt), ArcelorMittal Tubarao (148,400 mt) and Gerdau Acominas (55,500 mt), while 9,800 mt were shipped by Usiminas Cosipa.
The main export destinations in December were the US (287,000 mt), South Korea (55,300 mt), Indonesia (41,400 mt) and India (9,800 mt).
For the whole of 2014, slab exports were one of the few steel products that went up in both volume and price, having achieved 4.13 million mt at $497/mt, increases of 22 percent and 2 percent, respectively.
The increased volume mainly reflects higher exports by ArcelorMittal Tubarao, amounting to 1.23 million mt, up 154 percent, while exports by ThyssenKrupp CSA were slightly reduced to 2.30 million mt. In 2014, exports by Gerdau Acominas increased by 13 percent to 519,000 mt and exports by Usiminas Cosipa went down by 27 percent to 81,000 mt.
The main destinations of the Brazilian slabs in 2014 were the US (2.8 million mt), Asia (630,700 mt) and Europe (500,000 mt).