France increased steel production by 33.7% m/m

In January 2023, French steel enterprises increased steel production by 33.7% compared to December 2022 – up to 900,000 tons. This is evidenced by WorldSteel Association’s data.

On an annual basis, steel production in France decreased by 16.7% as of January 2023.

In 2022, France reduced steel production by 26% compared to 2021 – to 12.12 million tons. Thus, the country took 16th place in the global ranking of WorldSteel steel producers.

In general, steel production in the countries of the European Union in January 2022 fell by 15.2% compared to January last year – to 10.3 million tons. Compared to December 2022, steel production in the EU increased by 11.9%.

During the second half of 2022, European steelmakers are massively reducing or stopping production amid rising electricity tariffs. At the same time, the European market is filled with imported steel products, which attract consumers by lower prices than local ones. According to Fastmarkets estimates, in 2022, about 14-15 million tons of annual steel capacities were stopped in Europe.

Already at the end of 2022 – beginning of 2023, EU steelmakers began to restart the stopped capacities, as the apparent demand for steel and product prices began to grow, and the costs of energy resources – decreased and stabilized. In addition, the industry predicts further growth in demand for steel products.

Recently, ArcelorMittal reported about plans to resume operation of blast furnace №2 in April 2023 at the French plant in Fosse-sur-Mer, which had been idle since December 2022.

As GMK Center reported earlier, in 2022 European steelmakers reduced steel production by 10.5% compared to 2021 – to 136.7 million tons. In general, global steel output last year fell by 4.3% y/y – to 1.831 billion tons.