ArcelorMittal’s assessment of prospects for the world steel industry for the rest of 2015 is for a small increase in apparent steel consumption (ASC). The only truly global steel company says that it expects mixed prospects regionally for ASC in its first quarter 2015 operating report, monitored by Kallanish. Company performance however was affected by “… headwinds”, according to ceo Lakshmi Mittal.

“We faced a number of headwinds in the first quarter, including a declining iron-ore price, a stronger dollar and surge of imports in the United States”, the ceo says in his comments on the steelmaker’s Q1 15 performance. These affected ArcelorMittal’s global financial result but “…the underlying performance of our steel business remained similar to the first quarter of 2014”, Mittal observes. “Off-setting the impact of these headwinds is a priority and we are focused on achieving a 15% reduction in mining costs and improving the competitive position of our US operations”, he adds.

Based on the current economic outlook, ArcelorMittal expects global ASC to increase by approximately +0.5% to +1.5% in 2015. It also anticipates the pick-up in European manufacturing activity to continue and support ASC growth of approximately +1.5% to +2.5% in 2015 (versus growth of 3.5% in 2014).

Whilst underlying demand continues to expand, due to destocking in the first half of 2015, ASC in the US is expected to decline -2% to -3%. Due to the weak macro backdrop both in the CIS and Brazil, ASC is expected to decline by -5% to -7% in both regions in 2015. In China, the steelmaker see signs of stabilisation due to the government’s targeted stimulus, however real estate market remains weak and expect steel demand growth in the range of +0.5% to +1.5% for 2015.

The steelmaker produced 23.7 million tonnes of crude steel in Q1 15. This was 3.0% up year-on-year and 2.6% up on-quarter. Steel shipments also increased globally to 21.6mt, representing increases of 2.9% y-o-y and 1.9% q-o-q. Iron ore shipments at 9.4mt were almost flat versus those in Q1 14 but fell by -5% from Q4 14.

Group sales of $17.1 billion fell by -13.5% y-o-y and by -8.5% on-quarter. Ebitda also fell by -21.4% on-year to $1.378 billion.

Source: ArcelorMittal