South Korea's plate makers see steady production in Sep'24

SteelDaily: South Korea's domestic plate makers continued their consistent production and sales performance, maintaining a volume of 700,000 tonnes (t) for the fifth consecutive month in September 2024. POSCO, Hyundai Steel, and Dongkuk Steel, the three major domestic thick plate manufacturers, produced 720,000 t in September. This represents an increase of 21% y-o-y but stable volumes m-o-m. While the overall performance remained similar to the previous month, the base effect from last year's low production volume contributed to the y-o-y increase.

Additionally, total shipments of second-hand goods rose by 10.3% y-o-y to 703,000 t, while domestic sales of thick plates increased by 5.3% m-o-m to 467,000 t in September. Parallelly, demand also rose slightly due to price adjustments and seasonal factors such as the peak season in September. However, the ongoing preference of ship-builders for Chinese thick plates and sluggish demand from non-ship-building industries hindered domestic sales growth. As a result, sales volume remained below 500,000 t, indicating a slowdown in sales.

Exports in September touched 243,000 t, with an average of over 230,000 t shipped overseas each month since May. India, Southeast Asia, and Southwest Asia witnessed a significant rise in exports from South Korea, whereas the US and China experienced a double-digit decline compared to the previous year. On the production and sales front, the negative gap compared to the previous month narrowed.

From January to September, the cumulative production of thick plates amounted to 6.43 million tonnes (mnt), a decrease of 1.6% y-o-y. Sales volume during the same period reached 6.368 mnt, down by 1.4% y-o-y compared to the previous year.

Additionally, domestic demand for plates decreased by 8.8% y-o-y to 4.25 mnt during January-September. Simultaneously, exports increased by 17.7% y-o-y to 2.118 mnt.

Notably, the industry is currently facing challenges with domestic sales due to a preference for Chinese plates and slow demand from non-shipbuilding industries.

Note: This article has been written in accordance with a content exchange agreement between SteelDaily and BigMint.