Global Steel Demand Could Fall By 10% This Year

The Financial Times reports that Bruno Bolfo, chairman and owner of Duferco, the world’s biggest steel trading company, said The global steel industry faces a difficult two years with a likely 10% fall in demand this year, followed by virtually zero growth in 2010.

Bolfo, whose company is based in Lugano, Switzerland, said any steel company that professed to believe that an upturn in the sector was likely in late-2009 was deluding itself. Any pick-up in global steel demand in 2010 would be “small stuff”, Bolfo said.

The downturn in the steel sector has been a shock to many steel companies, since in recent years demand in the sector has been massive and prices high, triggered by a big leap in consumption in China, the world’s biggest steel producing and consuming nation.

Brian Levich, head of Metal Bulletin Research, a London-based consultancy, said he agreed with Bolfo that steel output could fall by as much as 8 to10% in 2009. However, he added that, as a result of a pick-up in demand gathering pace later in the year, output in 2010 could rise 2 to 3%, helped by programs in China to stimulate the economy that would push up steel consumption in infrastructure projects.