Global Stainless Steel Production Reached New Record High in 2010
03/08/2011 - Global stainless steel melting activities increased by 24.9% in 2010 to a new record high of 30.7 million tonnes, according to the latest report from the International Stainless Steel Forum.
Global stainless steel melting activities increased by 24.9% in 2010 to a new record high of 30.7 million tonnes, according to the latest report from the International Stainless Steel Forum (ISSF).
The increase follows three years of declining stainless steel production driven by stock cycles and global economic crises. The strong recovery has several reasons, including economic recovery, strong end-use demand, and re-stocking at service centers and fabricators. An additional significant factor is the re-filling of the internal supply chain in the stainless steel mills, which alone can count for half a million tonnes.
In 2010, stainless steel melting in Asia (without China) increased by 20.8% to 8.6 million tonnes. Japan increased its stainless production by 31.5% to 3.4 million tonnes, partially compensating for heavy losses in previous years. Korea (+22.1%) and India (+17.6%) also achieved clear two-digit growth rates while Taiwan (+3.2%) was flat through the same period. Even during the past years of global economic crises, China was the driving force in stainless crude steel production, adding another 27.8% production growth in 2010 to a total of almost 11.3 million tonnes. Together, the Asian stainless steel producers now cover 65% of the entire world’s stainless steel production.
The next biggest producing area, Western Europe plus Africa, has reported a 22.1% increase in stainless steel production for 2010, achieving a volume of slightly less than 7.9 million tonnes for the year. All countries of this area – except South Africa – contributed significantly to this growth. Growth rates for the major producing countries ranged from +14% to +37%.
The Americas grew their stainless crude steel melting by 34.4% to 2.6 million tons in 2010. Central and Eastern Europe’s production achieved a clearly over-proportional increase of + 43.6%, bringing this area’s total production to 0.3 million tonnes for 2010, still almost negligible within the global context.
Comparing the performances of the single quarters of 2010 with the same of 2009 show very different growth rates during the year, clearly reflecting the improvement of global development through the course of 2010 as well as the heavy re-stocking in the first part of the year. Quarters 1 (+ 57.8%) and 2 (+ 33.1%) were clearly stocking driven compared with the same quarters in 2009, where business activities in stainless steel were still depressed. Quarter 3, however, showed signs of moving back toward more normal conditions, with growth of +5.3%. Quarter 4 finally showed a surprisingly strong 14.1% increase of stainless steel production compared to the fourth quarter of 2009, making it an all-time fourth quarter high, due in part to the further improvement expected for the global economy in 2011.
For 2011 ISSF expects a further increase of the global stainless steel production based on strong end-user demand. Some threats may arise from bubbles in raw materials and energy prices.
