Different demand dynamics will bifurcate nickel supply

Significance Stainless steel production in China and Indonesia rose in the final months of 2020, tightening the market. Softer recent prices for stainless steel and NPI suggest near-term downside risk. Impacts Over two-thirds of nickel in stainless steel is recycled, but the industry is yet to establish protocols to assess battery recyclability. Curtailing exploration prospects, budget cuts at Russia’s Norilsk Nickel and Australia's Clean TeQ will offset others' modest increases. Norilsk Nickel faces continued Kremlin pressure to answer for the environmental damage caused by last year's large oil spill. Indonesia’s NPI output will gain one-third in 2021, but the extra output will stay onshore, feeding the nation’s stainless steel output.

The Influence of External Factors on Ferrous Metallurgy Enterprises Activity

A great deal of factors influence the state of industrial companies economic security. The purpose of the article is to determine the most significant external causes affecting the successful functioning of domestic metallurgical companies. Special research focus is on steel output scale and consumption, import and export activity of rolled metal products, macroeconomic indicators in leading steel manufactures countries, rolled metal and raw material price movement, natural monopolies rate, employment dynamics of the industry, and changes related to harmful emissions amount affecting the environment. The authors proposed to monitor these factors on a continuous basis which will allow notify of emerging threats and negative trends in various areas of economic activity of ferrous metallurgy enterprises, this will positively affect their economic security. The methods of induction, deduction, synthesis, comparative and contrastive analysis were used in this research, which allowed to identify the most significant problems concerning domestic ferrous metallurgy over the past decade.

Ukraine’s commitments under Association Agreement: challenges and opportunities for the steel industry

The steel sector stands for a quarter of Ukraine’s industrial gross value added and is a backbone of the country’s economy. However, owing to lastingly insufficient investments to modernisation, the industry is largely obsolete: 70–80% of the production facilities are in operation beyond their final designed term of exploitation. Technology backwardness, coupled with excessive iron ore mining, results in an enormous environmental footprint. Owing to the domestic political and socioeconomic factors and severe competition on the global scale, the steel output hit its historic low in 2017. Recently, the EU became major Ukraine’s trade partner with steel export share of 32% in 2017. Modalities of this partnership will be gradually shaped in context of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement (entered into force since 01.09.2017), which stipulates transposition into Ukrainian law of some European directives, potentially sensitive for the iron and steel sector. In this paper, the current state of Ukraine’s steel industry was analysed, focusing competitiveness and environmental impact. The analysis performed reveals that short-term implications of the Association Agreement may expose the Ukrainian steelmakers to additional costs; however, the need to comply with the EU regulations is seen as an important factor, motivating the steel industry to modernise and, in the long-term, improve its economic performance and reinforce competitiveness.

TRENDS IN THE STEEL MARKET IN 2015-2016

The analysis of the rolled metal market shows that major market players can predict further pricing changes stipulated by challenging political and economic situation in the world. This article focuses on the main factors that influenced the cost of metal at the end of 2014, 2015 and early 2016 and contributed to further price fluctuation. In the new economic environment the world metal market faces dramatic changes. There arise new pricing reforms aiming diversion from a speculative component to a real market price. On the results of 2014, deflation of prices on metal made, by different sources, 12-15% compared to prices at the beginning of the year. Thus, the outlining tendencies force major Russian steel traders (e. g. EVRAZ, MMC, MIC etc.) to redirect their sales from the territory of the Russian Federation to abroad (Europe, Asia, America). According to steel output, in the first quarter of 2015 Russia remained the fifth country in the world. In the nearest future forecasts about steel production in the leading countries-producers don’t estimate any significant growth. The only exception, according to the experts, is a steel market in India, which is actively developing. Domestic product consumption in this sector defines growth rates of metallurgic industry in the mid-term perspective, according to the facts presented by the Ministry of Economic Development.

Global iron ore market will stay oversupplied

Subject Developments in the global iron ore market Significance In 2015, China's iron ore demand fell by 3.5% to 691 million tonnes (mt), contributing to a 40% drop in the commodity price. Spurred by Beijing's recent stimulus measures, prices have rebounded by 23% in 2016 thus far, triggering a surge in orders for basic construction materials (steel output reached a record 70.6 mt in March). Holdings of ore at China's ports have increased by 2.3% year-to-date, peaking at 97 mt on April 20, their highest level in a year. Impacts Global iron ore demand is projected to return to growth of 2% in 2017-19, but its increase will be outpaced by stronger supply growth. Oversupply will rise to 38 mt in 2017, before falling to 14mt in 2018, according to the World Steel Association. Backed by South Korea's POSCO, Australia's Roy Hill will increase production, adding 55 mt to global supply by early 2017. Iran will add 2.5 mt to annual pellet production this year and a further 15.6 mt in 2017. India is likely to scrap the 10% export duty on iron ore to bolster miners' position in global markets.

Global steel market will still face oversupply

Subject Slow cuts to global steel overcapacity. Significance In 2015, global steel output fell 2.8% compared to 2014, reaching 1.62 billion tonnes. China's production dropped by 2.3% to 804 million tonnes. In 2015, European benchmark steel prices fell by 27%, from 480 dollars/tonne to 350 dollars/tonne, while Chinese prices suffered a 41% drop, from 440 to 260 dollars/tonne. Margins at many steel-making groups contracted, as steel prices fell faster than the cost of raw materials. Large-scale job losses intensified in Europe, with the United Kingdom and Spain enduring the most of the capacity cuts. Impacts Latin American production could suffer from Asian competition unless sector-specific safeguards are introduced. Renewed dollar appreciation could make dollar-denominated debt unsustainable for many emerging-market steel-makers. BRICS exporters will suffer tariffs imposed by the US Department of Commerce. India will remain the industry's best hope for growth, due to its urbanisation and still low per capita steel consumption.

Effect of Aggregate Morphological Characteristics on the High-Temperature Performance of Steel Slag Based HMA

Steel slag, taking up about 20% of crude steel output in China, has caused many serious problems to environment, such as soil damage, water pollution. Research on the way of effective application of steel slag is always a hot topic. The utilization of steel slag in road construction as coarse aggregate is a promising way. Many researches on the mechanical characteristics of steel slag based HMA have been conducted in laboratory, and the quality indexes of steel slag such as angularity coefficient, dust content can be controlled by artificial way due to small demand for research destination. The lack of effective way to control the quality indexes of steel slag aggregate during processing is one of the main factors that limits its wide use in entity projects. In order to express the significance of quality control in steel slag aggregate production, this paper estimates the effect of different morphology on high-temperature performance of steel slag based HMA. High-temperature performances were carried out by wheel tracking test and permanent deformation test, results were discussed in this research.

Influence of the Steel Scrap Classes on the Liquid Steel Output Melt in Electric Arc Furnace

The paper analyses methods, the influence of use of charges of steel scrap of different qualities in the EAF on the index of liquid steel output from a melt using statistical analysing methods. The used research methodology consists of analytical simulation of variations in mass of liquid steel obtained from melts differing in steel scrap content in the metallic charge and of statistical analyses of industrial results acquired from the corresponding process documentation (so called melt cards). The obtained research results can be utilized in each steelmaking facility, which employs the Electric Steelmaking process, in order to “design” the metallic charge compositions, having in view the quality and economic aspects. The results presented in this paper are directed to the steelmakers employing the Electric Steelmaking process and constitute the authors original study.