Global steel trade including semis rose in 2017 to an estimated 448 million tonnes from 361 million tonnes in 2005 – for a compounded growth rate of 1.8% per annum. During this period, trade in finished steel products rose 2.5% per annum to 396 million tonnes, while trade of semi-finished steels fell 1.8% per annum to 52 million tonnes.
In 2017, global exports of hot-rolled sheet were about 90 million tonnes, which was well above the exports of 48 million tonnes each for cold-rolled sheet and galvanized sheet, and 38 million tonnes for pipe and tube.
Given steel production in 2017 of 1.71 billion tonnes and a yield to finished steel products of 89.5%, finished steel product output was 1.53 billion tonnes. Trade in finished steel products at 397 million tonnes amounted to 26.0% of production. When subtracting China’s exports last year of 75 million tonnes and its steel production of 854 million tonnes, non-Chinese steel exports of 322 million tonnes amounted to 42.0% of non-Chinese steel product output of 766 million tonnes.
Given the importance of the steel export business, no wonder it’s a major event when the world export price collapses. In the past, when this has happened, the mills have sought to consolidate as a means to recapture “pricing power.” Nowadays, the consolidation strategy no longer works because there are too many players. But, the mills have found a better solution – it’s a new “Age of Protectionism” created by the avalanche of steel trade suits since 2016 filed against the Chinese steel mills.
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