In his presentation made today, October 5, at the SteelOrbis 2015 Fall Conference & 73rd IREPAS Meeting held in Rome, Franc Cardona, director of marketing, communication and public affairs at Spanish steel producer Celsa, underlined that having a reasonably balanced regional supply and demand should remain a priority for reinforcing bar producers. He said that the global construction market is expected to grow at a faster pace than world GDP over the next decade. Construction production is also improving in the EU, with a 1.8 percent increase in July in the euro area, with civil engineering in the given month growing at 3.9 percent and building construction at 1.3 percent.
Cardona pointed out that the EU construction output is expected to grow by 1.7 percent in 2015 and by 2.3 percent in 2016. Meanwhile, global steel demand is expected to grow by 0.5 percent in 2015 to reach 1.54 billion mt, following growth of 0.6 percent in 2014, while it is forecast to increase by 1.4 percent to 1.56 billion mt in 2016.
Regarding long products, consumption grew faster than overall global steel consumption with 2.3 percent annual growth in 2014, already equivalent to 145 percent of pre-crisis levels (2007-2008). The Asian markets account for about 70 percent of total long steel consumption, while China accounts for more than 50 percent.
Mr. Cardona said that in the first half of 2015 global rebar consumption decreased by one percent year on year, with notable decreases in CIS countries and in Asia, with China’s performance severely impacting the global figure despite reasonable growth in EU (five percent), North America (four percent) and in other world countries (9.4 percent). On the other hand, global wire rod consumption in the given period decreased by 1.7 percent, mainly due to the sharp decline in Chinese wire rod consumption.
Commenting on price trends, the Celsa official said that FOB prices have clearly been following the evolution of raw material prices, while CFR prices and spreads for rebar have been fairly stable in recent months, compared to the scrap price trend.