EU apparent steel consumption rose by three percent year on year in the first quarter of the current year, according to the Economic and Steel Market Outlook 2018-2019/Q3 2018 Report from the Economic Committee of the European Steel Association (EUROFER). Robust real steel consumption and seasonal restocking in the given period explain this growth.
EUROFER stated that in the first quarter of 2018 domestic deliveries to the EU market rose by 2.1 percent compared to the same period of the previous year. Meanwhile third country imports rose by 9.8 percent compared to the already elevated import level registered in the same period of 2017. As a result, imports reached the highest quarterly level since the third quarter of 2007. This confirms that the volume effects of antidumping measures imposed by the European Commission over the course of 2017 have rapidly faded out due to other third country suppliers filling the gap left by the countries which had duties applied on them.
Preliminary estimates for the second quarter of this year show that apparent steel consumption may have risen by 3.8 percent year on year, largely owing to a continued rise in imports. The latest customs statistics signal a market share of imports of 24 percent in the second quarter.