October 31, 2019

Antonio Marcegaglia at European Steel Conference: weak demand for steel

The Chairman and CEO Antonio Marcegaglia was one of the speakers at the “European Steel Conference“, organized by World Steel Dynamics in Milan on 28, 29 and 30 October, during which the trends of the steel market were analyzed.

“The main reason behind today’s crisis in the European steel industry is flat demand, but not imports”, Antonio Marcegaglia said. “This is the reason why Europe has become the lowest priced market in the world: demand is even down in the second half of 2019.”

“Another issue for the current unfavourable situation is the low flexibility of European producers in terms of capacity management: they are a little bit slow in adjusting their supply to the falling demand. Only recently we have seen the aggressive reduction in production”, Marcegaglia said: he expects these capacity cuts (around 6 million tons) to be felt soon, considering the expected seasonal increase in demand in spring or even earlier.

Speaking on the prospects for the industry, Antonio Marcegaglia thinks that the prices and demand are set to increase as there is no more room for a further drop.

Watch here Antonio Marcegaglia’s interview with Class CNBC, given on the sidelines of the “European Steel Conference”.