Designing and building steelmaking plants globally, Paul Wurth is exposed to the impacts of global inflation, the war in Ukraine and the potential uncoupling of China from international supply chains.
“The European and global steel industries have seen considerable volatility in recent months, with steel prices rising sharply over most of 2021, matched by fairly marked falls in 2022,” said Rassel. That said, he pointed to a forecast from the trade association Worldsteel which sees steel demand set to grow by 0.4% in 2022 and by 2.2% in 2023.
“Record energy prices and increasing carbon costs are likely to be a damper on greater steel market development.”
Yet he cannot predict how the Ukraine-Russia war will play out, nor how the global community would react to an attack on Taiwan by China. But Paul Wurth has been a long-standing supplier to all four of these markets. “Record energy prices and increasing carbon costs are likely to be a damper on greater steel market development.”
He is cautiously optimistic, expecting the business to grow in the coming months as the market regains balance. “There will continue to be considerable opportunities from the global trend towards steel decarbonisation.”