South Korea: Steel demand, production likely to increase in CY’22

South Korea’s domestic steel demand and production volumes are likely to rise this year due to steady increase in both.

Global steel demand is expected to reach 1.89 billion tonnes (bnt), an increase of 2.2% against the previous year, taking into account the slowdown in China’s real economy and reduction due to the base effect of Covid-19.

In CY’21, South Korea’s steel consumption stood at 55.71 mnt, an increase of 13.8% y-o-y. Korean mills churned out 73.4 mn t, up 4.6% against CPLY.

Steel imports aggregated to 14.58 mn t (up 17.7%, y-o-y) while exports edged down 4% y-o-y to 27.7 mn t.

In CY’22, steel consumption is expected to rise by 1.5% y-o-y to 56 mnt while production should rise by 2.8% to 75 mnt y-o-y. Steel exports and imports are expected to be around 28.5 mnt and 13.9 mnt respectively.

Product-wise
Demand for longs is likely to increase by 2% compared to the previous year due to increase in demand in the construction and shipbuilding industries in CY’22.

As for heavy plates, it is expected that domestic demand and imports will increase by 3% compared to the previous year, while production and exports will rise by 7% against CPLY. However, it is expected that demand for HR steel will decrease due to a decrease in demand for downstream processes, but production will increase compared to last year due to the repair of POSCO’s Gwayang No. 4 blast furnace.

Because of a decline in demand from automobile and home appliances sectors, demand and production of CRCs are expected to decrease. In case of galvanised steel sheets, an increase in demand is expected to be limited due to the slow revival in the automobile industry, and imports too, are expected to decrease by almost 10%.

In case of steel pipes, domestic demand, imports, and production will all rise due to an increase in domestic and foreign construction investments, and exports are also expected to increase due to improvement in energy demand in the United States and easing of trade regulations.

Note: This article has been published in accordance with an article exchange agreement between SteelMint and SteelDaily.