Displaying items by tag: steel

World: Global steel production rose by 4.6% year-on-year to 1.81Bnt in 2018 from 1.73Bnt in 2017. Data from the World Steel Association shows that production rose fastest in the Middle East, Africa and Australasia. Asian production rose by 5.6% to 1.27Bnt and North American production grew by 4.1% to 121Mt. European production remained static at 312Mt, with a slight dip in the European Union (EU) balanced by slight growth in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). China remained the largest steel producing country, with 9.28Mt in 2018. It was followed by India, Japan, the US and South Korea.

Belgium: Data from the World Steel Association shows that world crude steel production rose by 4.6% year-on-year to 882Mt in first half of 2018. The association gathers data from 64 countries. Growth was driven by increases in Asia, where crude steel production rose by 5.2% to 614Mt. Production rose by 1.6% to 87.3Mt in the European Union, by 2.4% to 59Mt in the US and by 2.8% to 50.5Mt in the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Belgium: World crude steel production rose by 4.1% year-on-year to 427Mt in the first three months of 2018, according to data from the 64 countries reporting to the World Steel Association. Asia produced 294Mt of crude steel, an increase of 4.6%. The European Union (EU) produced 43.1Mt, up by 0.9%. North America produced 29.5Mt, an increase of 1.9%.

Europe: Tata Steel and ThyssenKrupp have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to create a European steel company by merging their flat steel businesses in Europe and including ThyssenKrupp’s steel mill. The proposed 50:50 joint venture will have its headquarters in Amsterdam and will be able to supply around 21Mt/yr of flat steel products.

“The Tata Group and ThyssenKrupp have a strong heritage in the global steel industry and share similar culture and values. This partnership is a momentous occasion for both partners, who will focus on building a strong European steel enterprise. The strategic logic of the proposed joint venture in Europe is based on very strong fundamentals and I am confident that ThyssenKrupp Tata Steel will have a great future,” said N Chandrasekaran, the chairman of Tata Steel.

The merger will create the region’s second largest steel producer after ArcelorMittal. Cost synergies of up to Euro600m/yr are expected through the integration of commercial functions, research and development and other supporting activities. In addition to this, ThyssenKrupp Tata Steel would seek to improve capacity utilisation of the network across the three hubs of Ijmuiden in the Netherlands, Duisburg in Germany and Port Talbot in the UK and their related downstream facilities.

Belgium: The World Steel Association (WSA) has forecast that global steel demand will return to growth of 0.4% year-on-year to 1494Mt in 2017. This follows a decrease of 3% in 2015 and a predicted decrease of 0.8% to 1488Mt in 2016. The data is part of the WSA’s Short Range Outlook (SRO) for 2016 and 2017 report.

“The economic environment facing the steel industry continues to be challenging with China’s slowdown impacting globally across a range of indicators contributing to volatility in financial markets, sluggish growth in global trade and low oil and other commodity prices. The global steel market is suffering from insufficient investment expenditure and continued weakness in the manufacturing sector,” said TV Narendran, chairman of the WSA. He added that some emerging economies in South and Southeast Asia show resilient growth and along with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) region and the European Union (EU) will support a recovery in 2017.

India: Neelachal Ispat Nigam (NINL), a joint venture between MMTC, Industrial Promotion & Investment Corporation of Odisha (Ipicol) and Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC), is reportedly planning to expand its steel output to 6Mt/yr from the existing level of 1.1Mt/yr. 

The expansion is expected to happen within five years. The cost of the expansion is likely to be around US$4.73bn, out of which US$631m has already been invested. At present, NINL's product portfolio includes pig iron and low ash mettalurgical (LAM) coke, along with nut coke, coke breeze, crude tar, ammonium sulphate and granulated slag. The envisaged products in the future include billets, bars and wire rods of different grades and sizes.