The World Steel Association today released its short-term outlook (SRO) for 2021 and 2022. Worldsteel predicts steel demand will grow 5.8% in 2021 to reach 1 billion 874 million tonnes, after a 0.2% decline in 2020. In 2022, the demand for steel will grow by 2.7% and will reach 1 billion 924.6 million tons.
The current projection assumes that the ongoing second or third waves of coronavirus infections will stabilize in the second quarter and that there will be steady progress in vaccination, allowing for a gradual return to normal in major steel-consuming countries.
Commenting on the outlook, Mr Al Remeiti, Chairman of the World Steel Economy Committee, said:
“Despite the disastrous impact of the pandemic on lives and livelihoods, the global steel industry was fortunate enough to end 2020 with only a slight decline in steel demand. This was thanks to a remarkably robust recovery in China, where growth was 9.1%. In the rest of the world, demand for steel fell by 10.0%. Steel demand will rebound steadily in both developed and developing countries in the coming years, supported by constrained demand and government recovery programs.
In the future, structural changes in the world after the pandemic will cause changes in the structure of demand for steel. The steel industry will see exciting opportunities thanks to rapid growth through digitization and automation, infrastructure initiatives, reorganization of urban centers and energy conversion. And all this while the industry is responding to the need for low carbon steel production. ”
Recall that in 2020, 64 member countries of the Worldsteel Association smelted 1 billion 829.140 million tons of steel, which is 0.9% less than in 2019.
