Middle East steel production will continue to prosper and further solid growth will occur in the following two years as new plants come on stream, various industry data collated by Saudi Gazette showed, this despite the lingering impact of global economic crisis. Steelmaking should climb to near 20 million tons in 2011. Output will be an “all time high” at well in excess of 17 million tons. According to World Steel Association, Middle East's total steel production increased 19.1 percent in January 2010 to 1.461 million metric tons against 1.227 million metric tons in the same period last year. Saudi Arabia recorded 471,000 metric tons last January, an increase of 134.4 percent from 201 metric tons in January 2009. The Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) is expected to maintain a relatively resilient growth of 9.5 percent in 2010 and of 8.4 percent in 2011, with apparent steel use reaching 62.9 million metric tons in 2010 and 68.2 million metric tons in 2011, World Steel Association said. It noted that the region continued to record positive growth in steel use in 2009 which amounted to 57.5 million metric tons, increasing by 0.8 percent year-on-year. World Steel Association has reported that Saudi Arabia's production of iron is expected to increase to 9.3 million tons this year compared to 7.6 million tons in 2009 and will reach 10 million tons next year. It said Saudi Arabia produced 1.3 million tons of iron and steel in the first quarter of this year, compared to 938,000 tons in the same quarter of 2009, an increase of 70.4 per cent. The report said Saudi production of iron reached 419,000 tonnes in March and 428,000 tonnes in February. The association expects the Kingdom's production to increase from 7.6 million tons in 2009 to 9.3 million tons this year and to reach 10 million tons in 2011, an increase of 22.2 percent between 2009 and 2010, and 7.9 percent between 2010 and 2011. Another report said the world steel output is projected to reach 1.350 billion tons in 2010. This will be an “all-time” high figure and represents an increase of approximately 11 percent over the anticipated outturn in the previous 12 months, MEPS (International) Ltd., a leading independent supplier of steel market information, indicated. Blastfurnace iron production is also predicted to reach a record level in 2010. At 994 million tons, it would be almost 11 percent above the result a year earlier. Further significant gains are foreseen in 2011. The last peak year for global iron and steelmaking occurred in 2007 at almost 947 and 1345 million tons, respectively. MEPS' latest forecast for 2010 noted that the return to past glory will take just three years. This compares with five years in the early 1980's and eight years in the 1990's. The current short recovery period is almost entirely due to the economic stimulus packages put in place by the Chinese government. With China accounting for almost 50 percent of both supply and demand, strong activity in this country, will have a positive impact on the global steel scene. The Middle East has traditionally had a very small ratio of capacity to demand, relying heavily on imported steel to meet the demands of the construction and oil and gas sectors. But the capacity/demand ratio could rise significantly in the future, as many mini-mill projects come on stream. In Africa, capacity has been greater than demand in recent years, but due to difficulties in bringing production on stream, steel output has remained lower than consumption.
