Global steel consumption will rebound by more than 9 percent next year, recovering after this year's 8.6 percent decline, which was less severe than earlier expected thanks to strong China growth. China, which contributes about half of the global output, will see its apparent consumption jump 18.8 percent to 526 million tons this year, the World Steel Association said.
The body previously expected China's demand to fall 5 percent. In April, the group had forecast that global apparent consumption - which does not make any adjustments for possible changes in stock levels - would fall 14.1 percent this year. The global recovery is stronger than predicted in April. According to the current forecast, China will rebound 19 percent in 2009 and 5 percent in 2010. Emerging economies will slow down 17 percent in 2009 but grow 12 percent in 2010. Apparent steel use in developed economies that contracted 34 percent in 2009 will rebound 15 percent in 2010. Therefore, the WSA forecasts that global steel demand will return to growth in 2010. Global demand will rise 9.2 percent to 1.206 billion tons next year from 1.104 billion tons, the group said in its first forecast for 2010.
The recession slashed global steel demand deeply this year, cutting into earnings for industry leaders such as ArcelorMittal, but Chinese production has boomed as Beijing embarked on an infrastructure-focused stimulus plan. But analysts have raised questions about the sustainability of China's unexpectedly strong growth, questioning how much of it is speculative demand versus end-use. Data of steel inventories in Chinese steel makers, merchants and end users are not available from official statistics, partly due to the country's massive but fragmented industry. But Chinese steel mills have been cutting prices since they hit a 10-month high early August, which analysts said was because output was far exceeding actual domestic demand. China's Baoshan Iron and Steel Co Ltd (Baosteel), China's largest steel maker, cut prices for its major steel products by 9-13 percent for November sales versus the October tag.

The world's largest steel maker, ArcelorMittal, would acquire additional 13.8 per cent stake in its Czech arm ArcelorMittal Ostrava for US$D 404.3 million. The deal will be completed next year, when the final payment will be made, which will result in exit of the minor shareholder from the company.
The transaction values the Czech firm, at an enterprise value of about US$ 264 per ton of liquid steel capacity. ArcelorMittal Ostrava has a capacity to produce three million tons of steel per annum. The deal will take the L N Mittal-led firm's stake to about 96 percent in the subsidiary.
The parent company will thus increase its stake in ArcelorMittal Ostrava to approximately 96.4 percent and PPF Group N V will step out of the Czech steelmaker's shareholding structure. ArcelorMittal currently holds 82.548 percent stake in the Czech firm.

The United States set preliminary duties ranging from 2 percent to 438 percent on hundreds of millions of dollars of imported steel wire decking from China to offset government subsidies.
It was the latest in a growing list of actions against imports from China, the United States' second-largest trading partner. Industry filed five new complaints against China in September, believed to be a record for a single month.
Since January, the Commerce Department has launched at least one dozen investigations into charges Chinese companies receive government subsidies that allow them to sell more cheaply than U.S. competitors or "dump" goods in the United States at unfairly low prices regardless of profit or loss. The preliminary decision concerns welded-wire rack decking, a product used in industrial and other commercial storage rack systems.
U.S. companies imported an estimated $317 million of such decking in 2008, an increase of 49 percent from 2006. The Commerce Department said it set countervailing duty rates of 2.02 percent for Dalian Huameilong Metal Products Co and 3.13 percent for Dalian Eastfound Metal Products. Both cooperated in its investigation. But a significant number of Chinese companies did not complete the U.S. government's questionnaire and those companies were given an adverse countervailing duty rate of 437.73 percent "for non-responsiveness," the department said.
Other Chinese companies not formally targeted in the case were given a preliminary countervailing duty of 2.58 percent.
In a related investigation, U.S. wire decking producers AWP Industries Inc., ITC Manufacturing Inc., J&L Wire Cloth Inc., Nashville Wire Products Inc. and Wireway Husky Corp. have also asked the Commerce Department to impose anti-dumping duties of 143 percent to 316 percent on the Chinese product. The Commerce Department will issue its preliminary decision on the dumping charges in mid-November and then make a final decision on duty levels in later months. The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) must determine whether U.S. producers have been harmed, or are threatened with harm, by the imports for duties to become final. Importers are required to post bonds or cash deposits equal to the preliminary duties. The ITC will vote on Friday whether there is sufficient evidence for the U.S. Commerce Department to proceed with three other probes into allegedly unfair pricing practices by China and other foreign suppliers.
Those cases involve coated paper from China and Indonesia, steel fasteners from China and Taiwan and sodium and potassium phosphate salts from China.
Attorneys representing Asia Pulp and Paper and U.S. importer Global Paper Solutions said on Tuesday the coated paper case was "without merit" and urged the ITC to reject it when it votes. The ITC also will decide later this month if there is enough evidence to justify an anti-dumping probe of seamless refined copper pipe and tube from China and Mexico.

“In a global market already dominated by an oligopoly with just three suppliers - Vale, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton - and in which the price of the iron ore has already reached a historical high in 2008, a joint venture of Australian iron ore assets is fundamentally against the interests of the steel industry, European consumers and the European economy”, EUROFER Director General Gordon Moffat said in response to the ongoing attempts of BHP Billiton to accomplish a joint venture (JV) with Rio Tinto.
“If allowed to proceed, the JV will restrict competition in relation to the fundamental competitive parameters in the seaborne iron ore markets: price, volume and quality”, Moffat explains. “Therefore, EUROFER has requested the European Commission to exercise jurisdiction over this new transaction and carefully investigate its impact on free competition.”
Through the JV, BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto will develop a joint view about the perceived demand and supply balance and will not constrain each other during benchmark negotiations where prices and volumes are fixed. They will have identical output available and full knowledge of each other's volume. Incentives for further iron ore capacity and infrastructure investment will be seriously constrained by the creation of the JV. The proposal to create this JV will have the same impact on the iron ore market as would have had the original full merger proposal comprehensively objected to by the Commission last year. There is no reason for the Commission to take a more positive view of this current JV proposal.

Austrian steelmaker Voestalpine will apply for a state loan guarantee of $436 million under a new Austrian law as credit markets are still tight, reports said.
The group will be asking for the maximum amount possible under the Austrian law, in which the government set aside as much as 10 billion euros of loan guarantees for Austrian companies in an attempt to unstuck the credit crunch. A spokesman for Voestalpine said the company had no urgent liquidity need but was still encountering a difficult market for long-term credit, which the government guarantee would help to address. Voestalpine had no plans to follow Austrian brickmaker Wienerberger and sell new shares. It got shareholder permission at its last annual general meeting to issue as much as 2 billion euros worth of new stock.