The world s overcapacity in steelmaking is getting worse, and profits are
evaporating
Jul 6th 2013 |From the print edition
THE importance of steel is in no doubt. It is the material from which much of
the modern world is made, from skyscrapers to washing machines. Governments
everywhere regard a strong steelmaking business as a sign of economic virility,
and thus hover anxiously over their domestic producers. A French minister
recently threatened to nationalise ArcelorMittal s Florange plant if it pursued
plans to cut jobs and close two blast furnaces. Despite a weak world economy,
global production of steel rose by 1.2% last year to a record 1.55 billion
tonnes.
Yet importance does not always translate into financial success. Steelmaking
scrapes by on microscopic margins that make even airlines look like paragons of
profitability. This is most apparent in Europe, whose steelmakers are the most
beleaguered. Yet China, where the industry is booming it has enjoyed almost all
of the global production growth in the past decade faces many of the same
problems.
The most pressing concern is an old one: overcapacity. In Europe especially,
the drive to build lots of vast steelworks in the post-war reconstruction
effort continued into the booming 1960s, only for demand to hit a wall in the
oil shocks of the 1970s. Too little was done to adjust capacity to the meagre
growth rates that followed. The financial crisis delivered the latest blow.
Around half of steel output is used in construction, an industry that took a
heavy battering. Steel consumption in Europe, at around 145m tonnes in 2012, is
nearly 30% below its pre-crisis level and demand is still falling.
A declining domestic market is far from Europe s only ill. Labour costs are
sky-high (only Japan s are greater). Feisty unions and fussy governments make
closing steel plants a difficult, expensive and lengthy process. And energy,
two-fifths of steelmakers operating costs, is pricey. Wolfgang Eder, president
of Eurofer, a steel-industry body, and boss of Voestalpine, Austria s biggest
steelmaker, reckons that the continent s unused capacity is 50m tonnes.
American steelmakers, though they are struggling to compete with Latin American
rivals, have it a bit better. Signs that the economy is recovering, cheap
energy from shale gas and a resurgent motor industry are all bringing good
cheer to steel firms. Jefferies, a bank, reckons America s steel consumption
will grow by 2.8% this year.
In Europe, despite some efforts to manage capacity by idling facilities, there
is little chance of the big closures required. No firm wants to be first to
shut plants and let competitors reap the benefit. And deals struck when times
were good still haunt steelmakers. ArcelorMittal, which became the world s
biggest steelmaker in a huge merger in 2006, agreed to maintain jobs and
production to persuade European governments to wave the deal through. Now it
will be a struggle to break these promises.
Adding to the pressure on steelmakers profitability is China s growing
capacity, which is denting steel prices around the world. After a decade of
rapid expansion, Chinese firms are now responsible for half of global
production. Although the government seems determined to cover the entire
country with steel and concrete in its drive for growth, the steelmakers have
expanded so rapidly that they now suffer from massive overcapacity. Yet more is
being added: Jefferies reckons that another 105m tonnes of new capacity is
under construction or planned.
China s stated aim of reining back steelmakers and consolidating state-run
firms has happened mostly on paper , according to Philipp Englin of World
Steel Dynamics, a consultancy. The central government wants cheap steel, so it
is unwilling to take radical steps to curtail overcapacity. Meanwhile local
governments are encouraging more steel mills to set up shop. They are a vital
source of direct and indirect employment, and tax revenues. To these
enterprises, profits are unimportant.
Since China itself will have little need for this unprofitable steel, it will
inevitably add to the country s exports, further depressing world prices.
Chinese exports are likely to be 30m-50m tonnes in each of the next few years a
small share of the country s total production of almost 750m tonnes, but an
amount that now exceeds the tonnage sold abroad by longer-established exporters
such as Japan, South Korea, Ukraine and Russia.
The expansion of Chinese steelmaking has pushed up the cost of the industry s
main raw material, iron ore, squeezing margins further (see chart,). The supply
of ore is dominated by four big mining firms, which supply 70% of all the ore
traded by sea around the world. Until 2010 ore prices were fixed in annual
negotiations between big steelmakers and the four miners. Now the steelmakers
have to pay at, or close to, spot-market prices, and these have proved
volatile. The futures market is still underdeveloped, with puny volumes and
thin liquidity, so hedging is hard. This has made the struggle for profits only
more arduous.
Iron ore is a sellers market but steelmaking, since there has been little
global consolidation, is a buyers one. ArcelorMittal, way out in front of any
rival, has only 6% of the world market, and 60 firms produce 5m tonnes or more,
says Nicholas Walters of the World Steel Association. Buyers, such as
carmakers, are bigger and more powerful, and thus can negotiate hard. These
pressures have made the steel industry a mere conversion business , making
wafer-thin profits, at best, by transforming ore into metal, laments Colin
Hamilton of Macquarie, a bank.
China s continuing economic growth offers the prospect of its excess capacity
eventually being used up, if the central government can somehow restrain local
authorities zeal for new plants. Europe s outlook is gloomier. Its firms face
an unwelcome choice between abrupt closures and death by a thousand cuts.
Although the world still needs plenty of steel it doesn t need as much as
steelmakers are able to supply.
From the print edition: Business