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Canada Metals Report Q2 2011
Business Monitor International, April 2011, Pages: 44
Business Monitor International's Canada Metals Report provides industry professionals and strategists, corporate analysts, metals associations, government departments and regulatory bodies with independent forecasts and competitive intelligence on Canada's metals industry.
Following a year of high growth in output, BMI forecasts stagnating Canadian production in 2011 as a result of shut-downs at US Steel and a slowdown in the rate of market recovery. Crude steel output in 2010 was up 38.7% to 13.12mn tonnes, which was nearly 800,000 tonnes less than BMI had estimated. In the first two months of 2011, output was up just 0.5% year-on-year (y-o-y) to 2.1mn tonnes, but still 15% down on typical pre-recession levels. The poorer performance was due in part to the lockout at US Steel’s Hamilton plant over an industrial dispute relating to changes to employment contracts and pensions. The impact of US Steel’s controversial ongoing shut-downs has been offset to an extent by Essar Steel’s investment in its Algoma facility.
In the first two months of 2011, Canadian aluminium shipments grew 9.6% y-o-y to 22,900 tonnes, while total steel shipments were up 17.5% y-o-y to 1.05mn tonnes. At end-February, aluminium inventories were down 0.5% y-o-y to 30,400 tonnes, equal to 2.8 months’ supply at current shipping rates. At the same time, total steel inventories were 1.52mn tonnes, up by 20.2% and equivalent to three months’ supply at current shipping rates. Inventories for North America as a whole suggest a risk of over-supply in both aluminium and steel that could lead to corrective measures over H111 in the form of modest production cut-backs.
With average monthly production relatively unchanged for over a year, the Canadian steel industry seems to have reached a plateau and is unlikely to show significant growth in 2011 unless disputes surrounding US Steel’s facilities in Canada are resolved. On this basis, BMI forecasts crude steel output growth of just 0.6% to 13.20mn tonnes and 3.1% growth in hot-rolled output to 13.13mn tonnes for the full year as demand for value-added steel products grows. As such, crude and hot-rolled output will not return to prerecession levels until around 2014-15.
On the consumption side, there is some cause for optimism, with some upside in new construction starts helping to revive the long steel market segment. Growth of 4.1% is forecast for the construction sector in 2011 and this is expected to continue until the end of the forecast period in 2015. On the downside, we continue to believe that the Canadian economy is due a slowdown going into 2011, in part because of a slowdown in the crucial US export market, but also because Canadian consumers are set to relent following a credit binge. However, we maintain our 2.4% growth forecast for the year. Our overall view, which we have held since the recovery began, is that Canada is better positioned for growth than the US, and these growth figures reflect that performance differential, with the US set to expand by 2.6% in 2010 and just 1.6% in 2011. This will ultimately affect growth in flat steel and aluminium products, which heavily rely on supply to industries manufacturing consumer goods and vehicles.
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