Page 99 from: May 2013

99May 2013

Ferrous

Iron ore production by major player
Vale fell to 67.53 million tonnes in the
first quarter of 2013. ‘Despite the
3.5% year-on-year drop, we maintain
the production guidance of 306 mil-
lion tonnes of iron ore for 2013,’ it
insists. Compared with the fourth
quarter of last year, the output fi gure
for January-March this year repre-
sented a decline of more than 20% –
partly because of the effects of the
rainy season on mining activity.
The commissioning of additional iron
ore production capacities, mainly in
Australia, is expected to put pressure
on iron ore prices in the second half of
2013, reckons Vale’s executive director
for iron ore and strategy José Carlos
Martins. According to a report in Metal
Bulletin, he believes that 30-40 million
tonnes of additional iron ore capacity
coming on stream in the latter half of
this year will push prices down – but
not below US$ 110 per tonne.

Steel
In the first quarter of 2013, major
steelmaking countries in Asia followed

From a regional perspective, crude
steel production fell in both South
America (-5.7% to 11.13 million
tonnes) and in Africa/Middle East
(-3.4% to 9.085 million tonnes) but
edged slightly higher in Oceania
(+0.5% to 1.414 million tonnes),
according to the WSA’s fi gures.

Pick of the crop
In March itself, China and India were
again the pick of the crop of leading
steelmakers, with the former upping
its production by 6.6% year on year to
a mammoth 66.293 million tonnes
while the latter’s estimated output of
6.86 million tonnes represented a
year-on-year increase of 6.5%. In con-
trast, production in the EU-27 slid
6.6% to 14.597 million tonnes, the
USA recorded a decline of 8.4% to
7.291 million tonnes and Turkey’s out-
put dipped just below 3 million tonnes
for a year-on-year loss of 4.6%.
For the WSA’s 63 reporting countries
as a whole, crude steel production
amounted to 134.883 million tonnes
in March for an increase of 1% over
that for the third month last year. The
global capacity utilisation average in
March was 79.4% compared to 80.5%
in February and 81.5% in March 2012.

Record output
The China Iron & Steel Association
(CISA) reckons that domestic crude
steel production averaged more than
2 million tonnes per day in March; the
fi gure of 2.07 million tonnes repre-
sented an increase of more than 3%
over the previous month. Steel prices
in China were dented in mid-April by
news that domestic crude steel pro-
duction had posted yet another all-
time high in the early part of the
month: daily output surged to 2.124
million tonnes during the fi rst 10 days
of the month, according to CISA.
Meanwhile, US crude steel output in
the second week of April achieved its
highest mark since August last year,
according to the American Iron & Steel
Institute. Production amounted to
1.88 million net tons compared to a

World crude steel output climbed
1.2% last year and yet the amount
of scrap used in its production
remained unchanged from 2011 –
largely because of developments in
China. So says Rolf Willeke, statistics
advisor for the BIR world recycling
organisation’s Ferrous Division, in his
latest update of ‘World Steel Recy-
cling in Figures’.
Despite increasing its crude steel
production by 3.7% last year, China
reduced its steel scrap consumption
by 12.3% to 79.8 million tonnes
owing to the availability of more
attractive iron ore prices during a
large part of the year; its scrap
imports, meanwhile, were slashed
26.5% to 4.974 million tonnes.
Similarly in Russia, steel scrap con-
sumption fell 4.4% to 20.1 million
tonnes in 2012 whereas the coun-

try’s crude steel production increased
around 2.3%.
Also in 2012, there was a 6% decline
in the EU-27’s steel scrap usage to
94.1 million tonnes while consump-
tion in Japan fell 4.6% to 35.5 mil-
lion tonnes even though domestic
crude steel output was only 0.3%
lower than in 2011.

US and Turkish upside
On the upside, growth in US steel
scrap use (+9.4% to 61.7 million
tonnes) outstripped the improve-
ment in domestic crude steel produc-
tion (+2.7%) last year. Turkey’s scrap
consumption jumped a further 5.1%
to 32.4 million tonnes while its over-
seas purchases gained 4.5% to
reach 22.415 million tonnes,
enabling the country once again to
lay claim to the title of ‘the world’s

foremost importer of steel scrap’.
South Korea’s steel scrap imports
leapt 17.4% last year to 10.126 mil-
lion tonnes while India posted an
even steeper increase of 32.4% to
8.18 million tonnes.
The world’s leading steel scrap
exporter, the USA, actually saw its
overseas shipments fall 12.2% last
year to 21.397 million tonnes
despite Turkey buying 13.8% more
for a total of 6.398 million tonnes.
US shipments to China plummeted
54% to 1.945 million tonnes. Total
steel scrap exports from the EU-27
climbed 2.1% to 19.214 million
tonnes in 2012 while, ‘after a diffi –
cult 2011’, Japan’s export volumes
surged 57.9% to 8.459 million
tonnes. Globally, total steel scrap
exports reached 106.6 million
tonnes last year (-1.9%).

a different course to most of the rest
of the world as their crude steel pro-
duction jumped 6.4% year on year to
just short of 260 million tonnes. In
contrast, declines were recorded in the
EU-27 (-5.4% to 41.468 million
tonnes), the USA (-7.6% to 21.458 mil-
lion tonnes), Russia (-4.8% to 17.223
million tonnes), Brazil (-4.4% to 8.345
million tonnes) and Turkey (-5.9% to
8.493 million tonnes).
The overall impact was that total pro-
duction for all 63 countries reporting
their fi gures to the WSA climbed 2.3%

to 388.696 million tonnes year on year
in the January-March period.
Although South Korea’s crude steel pro-
duction slid 5.4% in January-March
2013 to 16.381 million tonnes, Chinese
output was 9.1% higher at 191.891 mil-
lion tonnes while India (+2.9% to 19.826
million tonnes) and Japan (+0.2% to
26.63 million tonnes) also bolstered the
Asian production total. Among the
world’s leading steel producers, the only
other nation to record higher output in
the first quarter was Ukraine with a
0.4% upturn to 8.379 million tonnes.

Global scrap usage static in 2012

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