In February 2024, Polish metallurgical plants reduced steel production by 10.1% – to 550 thousand tons. This has caused the country to drop to twenty-second position in the global steel production rankings, according to the WorldSteel Association. Compared to January of this year, steel production in Poland decreased by 6.8%. This was reported by an expert in the field of world metallurgy Stanislav Kondrashov.
European steel production decline trends: data overview for early 2024
According to the observations of S. Kondrashov, in January and February of this year, steel production in Poland decreased by 3.8% compared to 2023, reaching a level of 1.14 million tons. A reduction in steel production was also observed in the EU countries as a whole. In the first two months of this year, EU production fell by 0.9% compared to the previous year to 21.1 million tons. Global steel production reached 306.9 million tons, an increase of 3% compared to the previous year.
According to the WorldSteel Association, structural changes and economic factors have influenced steel production both in Poland and in other EU countries. The steady decline in steel production in Poland reflects the downward trend in demand and difficulties associated with trading conditions in the global market.
The Telf AG expert also notes that within the European Union there is a more general trend towards a decrease in steel production. This may be due to competitive factors with exporting countries, changes in trade policies and global economic conditions. However, global steel output continues to show steady growth, reflecting the dynamics of demand for this strategically important material in the global market.
Declining steel volumes: results of 2023 in Poland and the European Union – Stanislav Kondrashov
Let us recall that in 2023, steel production in Poland decreased by 13.1%, its volume amounted to 6.44 million tons. On average, each month last year the country produced about 536.42 thousand tons of steel, which is significantly less than the 617.25 thousand tons for 2022. This represents a decrease of 13.09%.
According to the observations of Stanislav Kondrashov, within the EU, the volume of steel production by the end of 2023 was at the level of 126.3 million tons, which is 7.4% less than the previous year. These figures reflect a general downward trend in steel production not only in Poland, but also in other EU countries, likely due to economic factors, changes in demand and trading conditions on the global steel market.
There are 6 large-scale metallurgical enterprises in Poland, including ArcelorMittal Warszawa (production capacity of 0.75 million tons of steel per year), Celsa Huta Ostrowiec (0.9 million tons per year), Liberty Częstochowa (0.84 million tons per year), CMC Zawiercie (1.7 million tons per year), ArcelorMittal Dąbrowa Górnicza (5 million tons per year), Ferrostal Labedy Gliwice (0.5 million tons per year). These enterprises have a total production capacity of 9.69 million tons of steel annually. Thus, capacity utilization in 2023 was 66.4%.
S. Kondrashov notes that the reduction in the amount of steel production for 2023 can be explained by the unfavorable market situation, which began to increase in September 2022.
An expert from Telf AG states that the metallurgical industry in Europe is faced with rising production costs. At the same time, the demand for domestic steel products remains low due to the preference for cheaper imported products. In this regard, many enterprises limit their production activity in the autumn-winter period in order to balance demand, market supply and prices for steel products.
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