What has made EUROFER lower their 2019 Steel Sector Outlook?

According to the new estimates, the association now expects real consumption to move down by -0.4% y-o-y in 2019, while apparent demand will decrease by 0.6% y-o-y to 163 MnT. This represents a downward revision from EUROFER’s previous forecast a few months ago of a 0.3% growth in real consumption and -0.4% decline for apparent demand.

While the region’s apparent steel consumption saw a downtrend of -2.5% y-o-y basis, EUROFER believes that Q3 and Q4 might see a slight recovery. However, a number of uncertainties could adversely impact the sector down the line.

EUROFER has argued that a series of factor including rising imports, slowing economic growth and increasing safeguards poses as a threat to the EU’s steel industry. Earlier this year, the E.U. imposed steel safeguards in an attempt to protect the bloc’s steel industry on the heels of the U.S.’s Section 232 tariff. However, amid an incremental rise in the steel quota under the safeguards, Europe’s steel sector argues the measures are not effective.
The EU steel market is facing severe challenges. Following a decline in the first quarter of 2019, real steel consumption is, on balance, expected to stabilize around the year-earlier level in the remainder of the year, leading to a total reduction in final steel use by 0.4% over the whole year. Meanwhile, flaws in the design and functioning of the current safeguard measures do not reflect the reality of an EU steel market.

The market is being squeezed between negative final steel use developments and is facing the ongoing and serious threat of import deflection triggered by the US Section 232 import tariff in a context of persistent global overcapacity. The system still allows for extreme behaviors by exporters which have the potential to lead to serious market distortions. The expected reduction of apparent steel consumption in 2019 of 0.6% year-on-year is therefore expected to come mainly at the expense of EU steel producers.

Even though market conditions in 2020 are expected to improve moderately, risks related to import distortions continue to threaten the stability of the EU steel market. The 5% increase in the safeguard quota from July 2020 – following a 5% rise in February and in July 2019 – is once more not aligned with expected growth in real steel consumption of just 1.1% in 2020. The EU market, therefore, remains at risk of being destabilised by third-country imports at the expense of EU domestic producers. Nevertheless, the mild increase in final steel use is expected to lead to apparent consumption growing by 1.4% in 2020.

The manufacturing sector in the EU may have not seen the worst yet: a deepening escalation of the trade war between the US and several of its main trading partners and a no-deal Brexit would severely impact global trade conditions, trigger a further deterioration in business sentiment and lower investment growth, EUROFER has said in a release. In that scenario, the EU steel sector would suffer badly because at the same time the risk of import distortions increases due to the expansion of the size of the safeguard measures’ quota both this year and next.