The 4th annual conference “CIS & Eastern Europe Steel” organized by Business Forum & Metal Expert was closed on 28 April 2009. Media support of the conference – Polish Association of Steel Stockholders (PUDS), Steel Business Briefing, ME Steel, Siderweb.
The representatives of 88 companies from 26 countries have participated to the forum – steel producers and trader from CIS, Eastern Europe, Turkey, Iran, Egypt and other countries as well as end users of steel, equipment suppliers, transport and financial companies, governmental organizations and media.
15 leading representatives of the industry have presented their papers at 4 plenary sessions describing the current state of the industry in CIS, Eastern Europe and other major regional steel markets. The panel discussion closing the conference was devoted to the outlook for domestic consumption in Europe & CIS and the prospects of export from the region as well as market expectations for the nearest future.
Major part of participants share the opinion that this year steel consumption in the above mentioned regions is to drop by 30-40% while the capacity utilization will be 75% at best. The fact that the steel traders in key consumption regions have not yet sold out the stock resources bought at the peak of price rise last summer makes the situation more complicated. Real demand is expected to revive not earlier than in 2010 the highest hopes being laid on the financing increase from the governmental and financial institutions.
Steel prices this year including export prices are expected to move within the horizontal corridor the lowest line being just slightly higher than the production cost. Export prices for semis in the segment of long products are expected to range between 300-400 $/tonnes fob while the expectation in the segment of flat products are much more pessimistic the lowest line of export quotations of HR coils being estimated 320-330 $/tonnes fob.
PURCHASING CONFERENCE MATERIALS
If you are interested in purchasing the conference materials including all presentations and the list of participants with their contact details please contact the organizers at +38 0562 31 39 19 or e-mail at conf@b-forum.ru
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