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Growing importance of ‘green’ steel

Uncertainly caused by challenging trading conditions highlights the role ‘green steel’ will have to play in the drive for greater sustainability, according to BIR.

That’s the view of the president of BIR’s ferrous division, Shane Mellor of Mellor Metals in the UK in the organisation’s latest quarterly Mirror.

‘2024 has witnessed some of the most complex global trading conditions that we have seen since before the price surge that followed the Covid pandemic,’ Mellor writes.

‘Post-pandemic demand and supply chain disruption created new steel shortages that have taken the market months to fulfil.’

With China growing more slowly than expected after the pandemic and with reduced steel usage, he believes the market is observing some correction.

Factors for uncertainty include China putting more lower-priced steel onto the global markets, US steel production outpacing demand, Turkey showing ‘quite emphatic’ growth and a slowdown in Europe.

Higher demand

‘Against this backdrop of uncertainty arises the question of “green steel” and the form in which the role of recycled steel will evolve along the path towards global sustainability. The drive to reduce industrial emissions is being met increasingly by demand for lower-carbon steel. Recycled steel will be at the forefront of this shift.’

Mellor argues that this evolution in sustainability will require common standards that guide green public procurement.

Such standards would not only support the market by creating more predictable demand for recycled steel but also ensure that sustainability goals were met consistently.

‘This alignment could enhance market stability, foster innovation and drive long-term growth in the global recycled steel industry.’

Production rise

Meanwhile, the ferrous division’s statistics advisor Rolf Willeke reports that global crude steel production totalled 469.1 million tonnes in the first quarter of 2024, an increase of 0.5% over January-March 2023, according to worldsteel data.

China’s consumption in the first quarter rose by 1.9% to 58.55 million tonnes despite a 1.9% decline in the country’s crude steel production to 256.6 million tonnes.

Turkey’s imports of recycled steel rose 7.8% year-on-year in the first quarter to 5.327 million tonnes, maintaining its position as the world’s foremost recycled steel importer.

The main suppliers were the USA (up 5.2% to 1.009 million tonnes), the Netherlands (up 45.1% to 0.804 million tonnes) and the UK (up 18.2% to 0.577 million tonnes).

India was the world’s second-largest recycled steel importer (although down 29.2% to 2.28 million tonnes) with Vietnam in third place (down 34.6% to 1.390 million tonnes).

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