Apparent Steel Consumption in Europe to Shrink in 2022

Brussels based the European Steel Association EUROFER in latest Economic and steel market outlook 2022-2023 has said that the positive trend seen in apparent steel consumption throughout 2021 continued over the first quarter of 2022, but slowed down being impacted by ongoing, severe global supply chain issues, rising energy prices and production costs. In particular, these are expected to impact even much more severely over the second half of 2022, coupled with the expected effect of the war in Ukraine. In the first quarter of 2022, growth in apparent consumption increased by 6.5% after 10.1% in the fourth quarter of 2021 totaling a volume of 37.1 million tonnes. This is still below the pre-pandemic peak reached in the fourth quarter of 2018. EUROFER said “The heavy disruptions due to the ongoing supply chains issues, the consequences of the conflict in Ukraine on steel-using industries and the overall economic outlook are set to take their toll on apparent steel consumption in 2022. This is expected to see its third annual recession over the last four years, albeit moderate of minus 1.7%, most probably as a result of quarterly drops that are foreseen over the second, third and fourth quarters of 2022. Apparent steel consumption is set to recover in 2023 by 5.6%, but the overall evolution of steel demand remains conditional on very high uncertainty, which is very likely to continue to undermine demand from steel-using sectors.”