Export Surges from Major Steel Producing Nations in 2015

Demand-supply mismatch in domestic market leads to increased exports in 2015 with China leading the world’s top exporters list.

Weak demand and unrestrained production led to poor performance of global steel industry with world’s crude steel output dropping by 2.8% to 1,628 MnT in 2015 against previous year.

Except for India where crude steel production increased by 2.61% in the year 2015, steel output of major steel producing countries such as China, Japan, Korea, and Russia fell by 2.24%, 4.96%, 1.83%, and 0.49% respectively.

However, though there is fall in global steel production in 2015, demand and supply mismatched has forced the steel manufacturing nations to resort to export with US and European Union being prime export targets.

Moreover in order to deal with the supply glut, China purposely devalued its currency in 2015 to make its export offers cheaper in the global market resulting which China’s steel exports swelled by 20% from 93.6 MnT in 2014 to 112.4 MnT in 2015.

As China tops the list of highest steel exporters, many countries have initiated anti-dumping investigations against Chinese steel exports. For instance anti-dumping duty at the rate of 255.8% is imposed by US on imports of corrosion-resistant steel from China while EU recently imposed tariff of 13% on imports of Chinese steel bars.

With fall in crude oil prices in last one year Russian ruble also depreciated by 18% in 2015 thus acting as a catalyst for Russian steel manufacturers to export more steel. Russian exports inched up by 1.7% to 25 MnT while Korean exports surged by 3.57% to 33.32 MnT.

Although India ranks third in crude steel production across the globe, its share in steel exports is very low. India became the net importer of steel in 2015 with its imports standing as high as 9.04 MnT while exports falling by 29% from at 4.62 MnT in 2014 to 3.28 MnT next year.

Country-wise Steel Exports in 2014 & 2015

Source: SteelMint Research