Research and Markets has included a new report titled ‘South Africa Metals Report Q3 2012’ to its catalogue.
Egypt is catching up the market share from South Africa to become Africa's largest steel manufacturing country because of increasing cost of production and sluggishness in the domestic market. South African crude steel output was just 3% ahead of Egypt in the first four months of 2012.
According to Implats, in the nickel sector, albeit the completion of expansion at the Rustenburg refinery, supply of raw materials to the refinery had been affected due to halt of production at the mine because of strike action. Thus, refined nickel output will get affected to some extent even though the mine is anticipated to reach its pre-strike levels in June 2012.
BMI has modified the following forecasts and views over the last quarter
- The aluminum market in South Africa will be consistent and no drastic growth will be expected over the coming five years. The estimated growth in 2011 was 8% to 512,000 tons and consumption is anticipated to reach 900,000 tons in 2016. The yearly production of aluminum must reach 900,000 tons by 2016, reaching levels of 2007 prior to the economic downturn.
- Nickel output growth outlook has been reduced from 20% to 3% by BMI for 2012 with risks prejudiced to the downside. Nickel consumption is expected to increase 4% to nearly 47,000 tons, thus net imports of refined nickel of South Africa must decrease 11% to 16,000 tons in 2012 and 13% drop to 14,000 tons in 2013.
- BMI predicts that Egyptian annual crude steel output will be approximately 11.1 mnt in 2016, while that of South African will be 7.8 mnt. However, crude steel consumption in South Africa is estimated to decline 8% to 5.06 mnt in 2011 but is expected to grow 3% to 5.21 mnt in 2012.
Companies mentioned in the report include Anglo American Platinum, Impala Platinum, BHP Billiton and ArcelorMittal.
Source: http://www.researchandmarkets.com