作者：H. J. Kerkhoff, P. Dahlmann

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刊名：refractories worldforum

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出版年：2013-03-01

卷：5

期：1

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语种：英文

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内容简介

The STAHL annual meeting in November 2012 took place in difficult economic conditions: in the past weeks there have been growing signs that the German economy too is being increasingly affected by the euro zone crisis. Even the so far very robust steel user industries in Germany have shown an ever more apparent slowdown. At the last report, incoming orders have also fallen (Fig. 1). The douding of business climate in sectors such as the automotive industry, metal goods or machine engineering as determined by the Munich-based ifo-lnstitute for Economic Research also points to widespread economic uncertainty. As a consequence, the readiness to invest has tailed off. The steel industry, which stands at the beginning of the value creation chain, was already hit by euro crisis early on. A key role here has been played by the inventory cycle: unusually, this year dealers and users already started reducing their stocks back in spring. As a consequence, the incoming orders for the steel industry have showed only restrained development over the course of the year so far (Fig. 2): they have been on a decline since the second quarter. A revival following the summer break has not yet ensued. However, the orders have recently at least stabilized on the same level as last year. This is a reflection of the progress made in stock reduction. We are therefore sticking to our forecast from the beginning of September, according to which crude steel production in 2012 will make do at 42,5 Mt (Fig. 3). That corresponds to -4 % compared to the prior-year total of 44,3 Mt. However, the steel industry in Germany can boast a comparatively high capacity utilization of 85%. This is considerably higher than the global capacity utilization, which will be below 80% this year.