According to International Stainless Steel Forum, the global stainless steel melting activities have increased by 24.9% to a new record high of 30.7 million tonnes. This came after 3 years of declining stainless steel production driven by stock cycles and global economic crises. The strong recovery of the global stainless steel production has several reasons like economic recovery, strong end use demand, re stocking at service centers and fabricators and also the re filling of the internal supply chain in the stainless steel mills which alone can count for half a million tonnes.

Stainless steel melting in Asia (without China) has increased by 20.8% to 8.6 million tonnes. Japan increased its stainless production by 31.5% to 3.4 million tonnes thus 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%) at the same time was flat. Even during the past years of global economic crisis, China was the driving force in stainless crude steel production and the country added another 27.8% production growth in 2010 almost 11.3 million tonnes. All 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 an increase of stainless steel production by 22.1% and thus achieving a volume of slightly less than 7.9 million tonnes in 2010. All countries of this area, except South Africa, contributed significantly to this growth. The growth rates of the major producing countries ranged from +14% to +37%.

The Americas grew their stainless crude steel melting by 34.4% to 2.6 million tonnes while Central and Eastern Europe's production achieved a clearly over proportional increase of 43.6%, bringing this area to 0.3 million tonnes, still almost negligible in global context.

Stainless and Heat Resisting Crude Steel Production

In '000 tonnes
P - Projected

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 the global development in course of the year 2010 and 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 still depressed business activities in stainless steel were recorded. Quarter 3, however, showed already signs of back to normal with a plus of 5.3%. Quarter 4 finally showed a surprising strong increase of stainless steel production by 14.1% compared to quarter 4 2009 to an all time quarter 4 high. This is partially due to the expected further improvement in the global economy in 2011.

Stainless and Heat Resisting Crude Steel Production

In '000 tonnes

In '000 tonnes

In '000 tonnes

In '000 tonnes

Since a couple of years the stainless steel market has seen major changes in its grade categories with the rising importance of Chrome-Manganese steels and more recently of chromium grades. Based on the available statistics ISSF estimates the market shares of the three stainless steel categories as follows (quarter 4 estimate):

Market Shares of Stainless Grade Categories in 2010

In % of total stainless crude steel production: estimated, preliminary

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.