Posted on 10 Mar 2020
Egyptian domestic market rebar sales surged 29% on-year in December 2019 to 656,000 tonnes, according to the latest Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) data monitored by Kallanish.
The average price of December sales fell -15% on-year to EGP 10,346/tonne ($659). It was, however, up 1% from the 2019-low in November.
Rebar production in Egypt, meanwhile, surged 19% on-year in December to 821,300t, the highest monthly tonnage in 2019. Crude steel output slumped for a sixth consecutive month in December, by -14.3% to 574,000t (see Kallanish passim). This suggests more rebar was produced from imported billet.
Egyptian rebar sales in full-year 2019 thus grew 2% on-year to 7.35 million tonnes, recovering from a -6% drop after the first half of the year.
Despite the strong December showing, rebar production in 2019 slumped -8% to 7.47mt. Crude steel output last year fell -7% to 7.26mt. Egypt thus returned to the trend of producing more rebar than it does crude steel and therefore needing to import a portion of its billet requirement.
In late January some 22 Egyptian long product re-rollers said they will suspend production as the country’s safeguard duty is preventing them from acquiring billet feedstock at competitive prices. Egypt was nevertheless Turkey’s second-largest market for semi-finished product exports in 2019, taking in 233,178t, up 150% from 2018.
Source:Kallanish
