The performance of the Latin American steel industry has been undermined by external and internal factors, from commercial tensions to the activity of key nations in the region. One of the factors that most influences internally the results, is the difficulty of Mexico, the second largest economy in Latin America, to maintain its commercial volume and the dependence on fluctuations in trade agreements.
In this scenario, the region's steel market during January-May 2019 presented a 2% drop in the consumption of rolled steel compared to January-May 2018. Regional production of crude and rolled steel until June fell 4% and 7%, respectively, versus January-June 2018. However, although there is an accumulated deficit of 1.8 Mt in the rolled steel production compared to the first half of 2018, the month of June is highlighted as the least productive since February 2019. The refore, the expectations of apparent consumption by the end of this year, which had been estimated around 70 Mt last March, will not exceed 68 Mt in the most positive scenario.
The region increased its imports 1.2% between April and May 2019, identifying 0.1% increase compared to January-May 2018. The share of imports in regional consumption remained at 37% for the third consecutive month, as opposed to 36% in January-May 2018. This confirms the dependence of consumption on imported rolled steel, due to falls in cumulative production and apparent consumption. The deficit recorded in January-May 2019 was 6.0 Mt, with 232 thousand tons more than January-May of the previous year (5.8 Mt).
Crude steel. Latin America had a 5 Mt crude steel production in June, 8% lower than that recorded in the same period of 2018 (5.5 Mt). Considering the accumulated in 2019, there were produced 31.3, 4% less than January-June 2018 (27.1 Mt).
A smaller deficit compared to the accumulated of the first five months, which showed a 5% drop. But the value identified in June was 4% lower than the January-May average.
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