Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal, the world's largest steelmaker, has announced its financial results for the first nine months of this year.
In the January-September period this year, ArcelorMittal posted a net loss of $572 million, as compared to a net income of $3.96 billion in the same period of 2018. In the first nine months of the year, the company’s sales revenues totaled $55.1 billion, compared to $57.71 billion recorded in the first nine months of the previous year, due to lower average steel selling prices reflecting continued supply chain destocking, while its EBITDA totaled $4.27 billion, as compared to $8.31 billion recorded in the same period of 2018.
In the first nine months of this year, ArcelorMittal’s crude steel production increased slightly to 70.1 million mt from 69.9 million mt in the same period of 2018, while its iron ore production totaled 42.3 million mt, decreasing by 2.7 percent year on year.
The company said it expects global apparent steel consumption to increase by 0.5-1.0 percent in 2019. Also, ArcelorMittal expects US steel demand to decrease by up to one percent in 2019 due to lower demand from the automotive and machinery sectors, while in Europe the company also expects demand to contract by up to three percent, and in Brazil apparent steel consumption growth is expected to be lower. Meanwhile, in the CIS region demand is expected to be higher, and in China demand is expected to grow by up to two percent in 2019. In the world, excluding China, ArcelorMittal expects apparent steel consumption to remain stable in 2019.
ArcelorMittal commented, “Given these demand expectations, the group’s steel shipments are now expected to be stable in 2019 vs 2018 (revised from previous guidance of an increase year-on-year).