In the first four months of the current year, total EU exports of steel products to third countries decreased by 10 percent year on year. In the given period, semi-finished steel exports rose by 132 percent, whereas finished product exports dropped by 15 percent, due to an 11 percent drop in flat product exports and a 20 percent fall in long product exports, all on year-on-year basis, according to the Economic and Steel Market Outlook 2017-2018/Q3 2017 Report from the Economic Committee of the European Steel Association (EUROFER).
EUROFER stated that in January-April period this year the main destinations for EU exports were North America, Turkey and Switzerland. The government of Algeria did so far not release any information about the tonnage of steel products - mostly rebar - to be imported in the current year under its license system. It is now rumored that this might happen in the second half of the year, but most of the affected long producers in southern Europe have meanwhile been forced to adjust their geographical focus because of the continuing uncertainty on the re-opening of the Algerian market.
As stated in the report by EUROFER, concerns about growing competition in the international steel markets recently increased owing to the potentially severely damaging impact of import restrictions which may be applied by the US authorities under the Section 232 investigation. The EU market would be targeted even more intensively by third country suppliers than it is already at present, while at the same time EU exporters might face restricted access to the US market.