France reduced steel production by 26% m/m in December 2022

In 2022, French steelmakers reduced steel production by 13.1% y/y

In December 2022, steel enterprises of France reduced steel production by 26% compared to November 2022 – to 673 thousand tons. This is evidenced by WorldSteel Association’s data.

Annually, steel production in France decreased by 32.6% as of December 2022.

In 2022, French steelmakers produced 12.12 million tons of steel. This is 13.1% less compared to the same period in 2021.

In 2021, France increased steel production by 20.3% compared to 2020 – up to 13.9 million tons. Thus, the country took 17th place in the WorldSteel global rating of steel producers.

In general, steel production in the countries of the European Union in December 2022 fell by 16.7% compared to December last year – to 9.2 million tons. In 2022, the indicator decreased by 10.5% y/y – to 136.7 million tons.

As GMK Center reported earlier, European steelmakers are massively reducing or stopping production against the background of 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. Countries that supply cheap steel to the EU market do not pay emissions taxes and receive cheaper electricity than European producers. Because of this, the demand for European rolled steel fell, and production costs rose sharply.

According to Fastmarkets, since September 2022, about 14-15 million tons of annual steel capacities have already been stopped in Europe. Among those stopped Polish steel capacity, there is a blast furnace №3 of ArcelorMittal at the plant in Dombrova-Gurnych. The unit is capable of producing 2.2 million tons of steel per year. In general, the leading steel producer in Europe, ArcelorMittal, has already stopped about 7 million tons of annual capacity.