The Brazilian steel institute, IABr, stated in a press conference Wednesday in Rio de Janeiro that the country’s domestic sales of steel products should close 2014 at 20.8 million mt, 8.9 percent less than in 2013 and returning to the levels of 2010.
With imports of 4.06 million mt, the country’s apparent consumption of steel products is set to reach 24.7 million metric tons in 2014, against 26.4 million mt in 2013.
Exports of steel products went up 20.6 percent to 9.8 million metric tons, but the institute warned that the increase merely reflects the restart of one blast furnace at ArcelorMittal Tubarao, to feed part of the requirements of slabs of the Calvert Alabama rolling plant that ArcelorMittal acquired from ThyssenKrupp in association with Nippon Steel and Sumitomo.
Tubarao shares the supply to Alabama plant with ThyssenKrupp CSA in Rio de Janeiro and the slab plant of ArcelorMittal in Mexico.
Benjamim Baptista, president of the board of IABr and CEO of the Brazilian arm of ArcelorMittal, told SteelOrbis that the return to operation of one of the three blast furnaces of Tubarao, coupled to the reduction of prices of iron ore and coal along the year, have improved the plant’s competitiveness in relation to its Russian and Ukrainian peers in the merchant slab market.
“Our plant is state of the art, we receive iron ore from Vale on an over-the-fence basis, requiring no stocks of the ore, and our fixed costs are reduced on a per ton basis, due to our high volume of production,” he added.
An industry source told SteelOrbis that the base price of sinter feed fines currently charged by Vale in the domestic market is around $70/mt, CFR conditions.
The institute unveiled expectations of domestic sales of steel products increasing by 4 percent to 21.6 million mt in 2015, while the apparent consumption should increase by 2 percent to 25.2 million mt.
Forecasts for crude steel production, imports and exports were not unveiled, due to uncertainties related to the international steel markets, to exchange rate variations and to the international economies.