Steel and its markets

The paper indicates the scale of world steel production and traces its development over the past hundred years. In recent decades output growth has averaged 5½%/y, implying a doubling every 13 years. The broad regional pattern of steel production and steel consumption is then set out. The major producing areas are also areas of high steel consumption. Consumption in the developing world accounts for less than 10% of the world total and only half of it is met from production in the developing countries. The next section is concerned with the industrial distribution of rolled steel products. For each product group the principal market outlets are listed, together with their relative importance in the UK. Data are given on the growing importance of flat products, and the structure of rolled steel products in the UK is cited as typical for an industrialized economy. The paper ends with a discussion of future prospects for steel demand and production, quoting critically the long-term estimates published by the International Iron and Steel Institute. Reference is made to possible shifts in the market pattern, to competition between steel products and alternative materials, and to steel product developments having a bearing on the pattern of rolled steel production.