STATE OF THE STAINLESS STEEL NATION
The South African stainless steel industry has felt the effects of the COVID-induced global turmoil over the past few years and while certain historic trends have changed, some remained the same. Worldstainless recently revealed some interesting statistics in this regard.
The share allocation of stainless steel production in the global regions has shown some movement away from Asiatic producers (not including China and South Korea) since 2005 and in 2021 China was the major global producer. This has not changed, and stainless steel remains the leader in terms of growth of major metals.
In the past, engineering plastics and other composite materials were regarded as a potential threat to the use of stainless steel since with very similar growth curves since the 1980s. The latest information shows that the global production of stainless steel has made a positive break away from the plastic growth rate. This is good news for sustainability. Globally, stainless steel is used most for general metal products and as a preferred material by mechanical engineers. Stainless steel is widely used in the automotive industry and for other transport solutions.
The first 5 months of 2022 saw a 5% increase in production compared to the same period in 2021. In the same period, exports also saw growth of 13% compared to last year. With the import levels down by 20% in the period, this resulted in a 15% shrinkage in apparent local consumption during the first five months of 2022 compared to the same period a year ago.
The year-on-year comparison shows that in the year leading up to May 2022, local production was 5% better than the preceding year. The same applies for Exports and Imports which showed a growth of 8% and 18% respectively. The year leading up to May 2022 saw an increase in apparent local consumption of 3% if compared to the year leading up to May 2021.
This is no indication of proverbial fireworks in our industry, but our members’ confidence in the sector increased to just under 55%. There is a good demand for stainless steel products and specific stainless steel users have started to expand and refurbish plants. This all bodes well for the industry, but a major uncertainty and concern remains the availability and supply of electricity to the industry.