Global trade association sees widespread steel demand recovery for remainder of 2021 and into 2022.
The Brussels-based World Steel Association (Worldsteel) has released its short-range outlook for 2021 and 2022. Worldsteel forecasts steel demand will grow by 5.8 percent in 2021 to reach nearly 1.88 billion metric tons.
Steel output declined by 0.2 percent in 2020. In 2022, steel demand will experience additional growth of 2.7 percent to reach nearly 1.925 billion metric tons.
The current forecast, Worldsteel says, assumes “the ongoing second or third waves of [COVID-19] infections will stabilize in the second quarter and that steady progress on vaccinations will be made, allowing a gradual return to normality in major steel-using countries.”
“Despite the disastrous impact of the pandemic on lives and livelihoods, the global steel industry was fortunate enough to end 2020 with only a minor contraction in steel demand,” remarks Saeed Ghumran Al Remeithi, chair of the Worldsteel Economics Committee.
The committee says there is still “considerable uncertainty for the rest of 2021,” saying the evolution of the virus and progress of vaccinations, withdrawal of supportive fiscal and monetary policies, geopolitics and trade tensions all could affect the recovery outlined in its forecast.
In developed nations, “After the free-fall in economic activity in the second quarter of 2020, industry generally rebounded quickly in the third quarter, largely due to the substantial fiscal stimulus measures and unleashing of pent-up demand,” writes Worldsteel.
The association notes, however, that activity levels remained below the pre-pandemic level at the end of 2020. As a result, the developed world’s steel demand recorded a decline of 12.7 percent in 2020.
Predicts Worldsteel, “We will see substantial recovery in 2021 and 2022, with growth of 8.2 percent and 4.2 percent, respectively. However, steel demand in 2022 will still fall short of 2019 levels.”
Despite high infection levels, the United States economy was able to rebound strongly from the first wave thanks in part to substantial fiscal stimulus that supported consumption. This helped durable goods manufacturing, but overall U.S. steel demand fell by 18 percent in 2020.
The Biden administration has announced a $2 trillion fiscal proposal containing provisions for substantial infrastructure investment over a multiyear period. The plan will be subject to negotiations in Congress.
Almost any resulting plan will have upside potential for steel demand. However, despite this and fast progress in vaccinations, steel demand recovery will be constrained in the short term by a weak rebound in the non-residential construction and energy sectors. The automotive sector is expected to recover strongly.
In the European Union, steel-consuming sectors suffered severely from the first lockdown measures in 2020 but experienced a stronger than expected postlockdown rebound in manufacturing activities due to supportive government measures and pent-up demand, says Worldsteel.
Accordingly, steel demand in 2020 in the EU 27 nations and the United Kingdom ended with a better-than-expected 11.4 percent contraction.
“The recovery in 2021 and 2022 is expected to be healthy, driven by recovery in all steel-using sectors, especially the automotive sector and public construction initiatives,” Worldsteel says. So far, the EU’s recovery momentum has not been derailed by ongoing COVID-19 surges, but the continent’s health situation “remains fragile,” the association adds.
Scrap-importing electric arc furnace (EAF) mill-heavy Turkey “suffered a deep contraction in 2019 due to the currency crisis of 2018, [but] maintained the recovery momentum that started in late 2019 due to construction activities,” Worldsteel says. The recovery momentum there will continue, and steel demand is expected to return to the precurrency crisis level in 2022, says the group.
The economy of South Korea, another scrap importing nation, escaped a large decline in gross domestic product thanks to better management of the pandemic, and it saw positive momentum in facility investment and construction.
Nevertheless, steel demand contracted by 8 percent in 2020 because of contraction in the auto and shipbuilding sectors. In 2021-22, these two sectors will lead the recovery, which will be further supported by the continued strength in facility investment and government infrastructure programs. Nevertheless, steel demand in 2022 is not expected to return to the pre-pandemic level.
India suffered severely from an extended period of severe lockdown, which brought most industrial and construction activities to a standstill. However, the economy has been recovering strongly since August, (much sharper than expected, says Worldsteel), with the resumption of government projects and pent-up consumption demand.
India’s steel demand fell by 13.7 percent in 2020 but is expected to rebound by 19.8 percent to exceed the 2019 level in 2021, likely providing good news for ferrous scrap exporters. The growth-oriented government agenda will drive India’s steel demand up, while private investment will take longer to recover.
The Japanese economy also was dealt a severe blow from the pandemic because of the interruption of broad economic activity and weak confidence that added to the effect of an October 2019 consumption tax hike. With a particularly pronounced fall in auto production, steel demand declined by 16.8 percent in 2020. The recovery in Japan’s steel demand will be moderate, driven by a rebound in the automotive sector with recovering exports and industrial machinery because of a worldwide recovery in capital spending, according to Worldsteel.
In the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region, disruptions to construction projects hit the fast-growing steel market, and steel demand contracted by 11.9 percent in 2020.
Malaysia (which imports significant amounts of scrap from the U.S.) and the Philippines were the most severely hit, while Vietnam and Indonesia saw only a modest decline in steel demand. Recovery will be driven by a gradual resumption of construction activities and tourism, which will accelerate in 2022.
In China, the construction sector had a fast recovery from April 2020 onward, supported by infrastructure investment. For 2021 and onward, real estate investment growth may decrease in light of the government’s guidance to slow down growth in that sector.
Investment in infrastructure projects in 2020 reported tempered growth of 0.9 percent. However, as the Chinese government has kicked off a number of new projects to support the economy, the growth in infrastructure investment is expected to pick up in 2021 and continue to affect steel demand in 2022.
In the manufacturing sector, automotive production has been recovering strongly since May 2020. For all of 2020, auto production declined by only 1.4 percent. Other manufacturing sectors have shown growth because of strong export demand.
Overall in China, apparent steel use rose by 9.1 percent in 2020. In 2021, it is expected stimulus measures introduced in 2020 will largely remain in place to ensure continued reasonable growth in the economy. As a result, most steel-consuming sectors will show moderate growth and China’s steel demand is expected to grow by 3 percent in 2021. In 2022, steel demand growth will “decelerate to percent as the effect of the 2020 stimulus subsides, and the government focuses on more sustainable growth,” according to Worldsteel.
John Francis Porter, the former VP and group manager of Recology, has been charged with bribing a public regulator.
The Northern District of California has announced that John Francis Porter, the former vice president and group manager of Recology, San Francisco, has been charged with bribing former Director of San Francisco Department of Public Works (DPW) Mohammed Nuru and with money laundering.
The complaint, unsealed April 15, alleges that Porter, 37, of San Francisco, bribed Nuru and participated in laundering the proceeds of the bribe as part of an alleged years-long scheme to defraud the public. Porter was group controller and later vice president and general manager of Recology’s San Francisco Group, which provides refuse collection and disposal services in San Francisco.
Acting U.S. Attorney Stephanie Hinds says that Porter was a central player in the scheme detailed in the complaint. The scheme included paying Nuru to benefit Recology.
Nuru resigned as the director of San Francisco’s DPW after being charged in a Jan. 16, 2020, federal complaint. He was charged with honest services fraud for a scheme to bribe a San Francisco airport commissioner. The prosecution of Nuru remains ongoing, The Northern District of California says.
Porter is the second Recology employee charged. Paul Giusti, the former Recology San Francisco group government and community relations manager who reported to Porter, was charged on Nov. 18, 2020. The federal complaint included bribery and money laundering for his role in the same conduct described in the complaint allegations against Porter. Giusti’s prosecution is continuing.
“Once again, a person employed by a company contracting with San Francisco has been charged with bribing a San Francisco City Hall official with more than $1 million in funds and benefits,” Hinds says. “A person who pays a bribe is as criminally liable as the public official who takes it. Our investigation of San Francisco City Hall corruption continues. If you have information about corruption among San Francisco public officials or contractors with San Francisco, reach out to the FBI. Your cooperation is important.”
FBI Special Agent in Charge D. Fair says that Porter is the eleventh individual charged in the FBI’s probe into public corruption in San Francisco City Hall.
The specific charge of the complaint alleges that in the summer of 2018, Recology sought to raise the tipping fees it charged the city of San Francisco for dumping materials at the Recology Sustainable Crushing facility. During the summer and fall of 2018, the complaint alleges, Porter sought Nuru’s assistance with Recology’s efforts to increase the tipping fee. Porter enlisted the help of his subordinate, Giusti, who had a close relationship with Nuru.
The complaint states that Porter emailed Nuru seeking assistance in obtaining the tipping fee increase on Nov. 26, 2018. Thereafter, Giusti agreed to give Nuru a bribe of $20,000 to influence his official actions on the proposed increase. The complaint states that Porter gave written approval for Recology to issue a $20,000 check described as a “holiday donation” to the Lefty O’Doul’s Foundation for Kids, a non-profit organization to help underprivileged San Francisco children run by Nick Bovis. Giusti provided the bribe money to the Lefty O’Doul’s Foundation, and Bovis used the Recology money to pay for Nuru’s elaborate DPW holiday party, not to help underprivileged San Francisco children. Despite the bribe, the attempt to increase the tipping fee was ultimately unsuccessful. Bovis pleaded guilty to honest services fraud in May 2020 for bribing Nuru.
The complaint further describes Porter’s role in the Recology San Francisco Group’s efforts, acting through executives including Giusti and Porter, to direct benefits to Nuru. These benefits totaled over $1 million, and were made to influence Nuru, who was Recology’s regulator. Recology had an ongoing need for Nuru’s approvals, including for rate increases for residential garbage collection.
To keep Nuru happy, the complaint alleges that Giusti, with the approval of Porter or Porter’s immediate predecessor, arranged for Recology to provide Nuru with a stream of benefits over the span of years. Porter ultimately approved $55,000 to fund Nuru’s DPW holiday parties in payments disguised as charitable Lefty O’Doul’s Foundation donations. The complaint also describes Porter’s role in approving hundreds of thousands of dollars over several years in Recology payments made, at Nuru’s directions, to a San Francisco nonprofit, ostensibly for a DPW program called “Giant Sweep.” That nonprofit held the money for about a week or two, then took a 5 percent cut and sent the money at Nuru’s direction to accounts controlled by Nuru at another nonprofit. Recology’s payments to Nuru were closely tied in time to specific needs for Nuru’s assistance and approval.
Porter is charged with one count of bribery and one count of laundering the proceeds of honest services fraud. If convicted of bribery, he faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000. If convicted of concealment money laundering, he faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, a fine of $500,000 or twice the value of the property involved in the transaction, or both.
Porter is expected to make his initial appearance in federal court in San Francisco on April 20 before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley.
So far, 11 people have been charged. Most recently, Sandra Zuniga, 45, of South San Francisco and the former director of both the San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Services and San Francisco’s Fix-It Team, entered her plea of guilty to a charge of conspiring to launder money with Nuru. Zuniga has agreed to cooperate with the FBI in the public corruption investigation relating to the San Francisco government.
The case is being prosecuted by the Corporate Fraud Strike Force of the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The case is being investigated by IRS Criminal Investigation and the FBI.
The company’s Bag-in-Box is the first generic packaging product to receive the “Frustration-Free Packaging” certification.
Smurfit Kappa of Dublin has announced that it received Amazon’s “Frustration-Free Packaging” (FFP) certification. The company was recognized for its 3-liter Bag-in-Box packaging, made for transporting liquids like juice and wine.
Businesses selling on Amazon Marketplace can now use this ready-to-go, precertified Bag-in-Box design.
“We are delighted to partner with Amazon to deliver the first-ever precertified FFP design,” says Arco Berkenbosch, the company’s vice president of innovation and development. “It is a testament to the experience Smurfit Kappa has gathered conducting ISTA International Safe Transit Association) certified packaging analysis and Amazon FFP certification over the past 14 years. This new collaboration allows businesses to sell through Amazon Marketplace at a much faster speed.”
The box is strong enough to protect the product during transit and its design improves efficiency and handling. Bag-in-Box uses on average 75 percent less plastic than rigid plastic packaging and has easy to separate materials, guaranteeing high recycling rates, Smurfit Kappa says.
Smurfit Kappa specializes in paper packaging with a focus on sustainability. Bag-in-Box is a part of Smurfit Kappa’s Better Planet Packaging portfolio of products that seeks to make a positive impact on supply chains while improving packaging’s environmental footprint.
The company partnered with startup Recycleye to introduce its first material sorting machines.
Fanuc, an international robotics company with global headquarters based in Japan, has announced its first robotic sorting machine for the waste management industry. The company developed the machine to assist countries such as the United Kingdom in meeting their recycling goals.
The company partnered with Recycleye, a tech start-up company based in London, to develop Recycleye Robotics. The machine can identify, sort and pick materials at a rate of 55 picks per minute compared with 40 to 45 picks by humans, Recycleye spokesperson Ashika Patel says.
“The cameras used by Recycleye are just like the cameras on the back of a typical phone to identify the waste objects,” Patel says. “The device will capture around 60 images per second, and that data is transported to the cloud, which then allows us to provide high-level and actionable insights to the client. We can provide data to the client such as trend analysis and plant downtime.”
The machine has several applications, including negative sorting. It can sort materials like polyethylene terephthalate (PET), high-density polyethylene (HDPE), polyethylene/polypropylene (PE/PP), aluminum and paper.
Another aspect that Fanuc says stands out from other automatic pickers is user accessibility. Recycleye Robotics weighs 75 percent less than any existing robotic waste picker currently in the market. The machine also is capable of being plugged in without retrofitting, making it ready to use more quickly.
Recycleye Robotics is powered by Recycleye Vision, an artificial intelligence (AI) vision system. Recycleye Vision works to constantly train and learn new object detection, enabling the robotic waste picking system to adapt to changing material stream composition without any need for manual upgrades.
“Recycleye’s intelligent robotic picker is creating long-term value for our clients, working consistently to increase throughput and reduce the cost of recycling,” Yann Glauser, lead hardware engineer at Recycleye, says. “Our partnership with Fanuc is leveraging world-leading expertise in robotic solutions to develop the most effective automated solution for waste sorting.”
The modular robotic picking system has been deployed at two U.K. material recovery facilities on multiple plastic and paper sorting lines. Recycleye says deployments in France are scheduled for later this year.
FANUC Corp. specializes in factory automation for CNC control systems, robots and production machinery. In addition to its headquarters in Japan, the company has a subsidiary, Fanuc UK Ltd., based in Coventry, England, in addition to other subsidiary locations.
Recycleye says it has flexible financing for those interested in using its product. They have options to buy or lease with a two-year warranty.
Those interested in learning more about Recycleye Robotics can email hello@recycleye.com.
The industry’s use of scrap increased 25 percent from 1993 to 2018.
The Aluminum Association, Washington, has released a report that shows positive environmental impact trendlines over the last 25 years for the U.S. aluminum industry. The “U.S. Aluminum Industry Sector Snapshot” focuses on seven key environmental issue areas: air, energy, greenhouse gas emissions, land management, water, waste and aluminum scrap use. In nearly every area, the U.S. aluminum industry has reduced its impact significantly since the 1990s. These positive environmental trends are attributable to performance improvements and the transition from primary metal to significantly more recycled material.
“The U.S. aluminum industry has made considerable strides reducing its environmental impact since the 1990s,” Tom Dobbins, president and CEO of the Aluminum Association, says. “Notably, aluminum producers have done so while demand for the metal has grown by more than 25 percent domestically. Aluminum is incredibly sustainable in the use phase – making cars and trucks more energy-efficient, buildings greener and packaging more recyclable. But the industry is also firmly committed to doing what it can on the production side to reduce its impact.”
Data in the report come from public reporting by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and is modeled after the EPA’s own “Smart Sector” snapshots.
The information focuses exclusively on U.S. facilities involved in producing alumina as well as the production and recycling of aluminum and its semifabricated products.
According to the report, the industry’s total air emissions reported to the EPA decreased by 65 percent from 1996 to 2019, while energy use dropped 55 percent from 1998 to 2018. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions declined by nearly 60 percent between 2005 and 2018. Additionally, U.S. manufacturers increased their use of aluminum scrap by more than 25 percent between 1993 and 2018.
The association says aluminum produced in North America is among the cleanest in the world because of a heavy reliance on renewable hydropower electricity generation. Over the past 40 years, the industry has cut the intensity of GHG emissions from primary production by more than half while doubling the amount of aluminum collected for recycling, the report notes.
In addition to using inert anode technology to eliminate direct GHG emissions in primary production, firms also are working to increase aluminum recycling in manufacturing by entering into partnerships to recover and recycle aluminum, the association notes. Aluminum recyclers have reduced aluminum loss and solid waste generation using new technologies to extract more metal from dross and salt cake, residues of recycling processes.
In a virtual press roundtable that was part of the Aluminum Association Spring Meeting from April 12-15, Dobbins said, “The next big debate in Congress will be around potentially transformative infrastructure investment. We recognize there are a ton of details to be worked out and debates to be had, but speaking at a high level, aluminum is an essential part of this conversation. Our metal is used widely in the electric grid, solar panels, electric vehicle charging stations and buildings of all kinds. Infrastructure investment also provides a once-in-a-generation opportunity to modernize the nation’s recycling system—another key part of building resilient aluminum supply chains in the U.S.”
Aluminum Association Chair Marco Palmieri, senior vice president and chief integration officer of Atlanta-based Novelis North America, said even with the environmental gains the industry has made, the greenest aluminum is aluminum made with recycled content. “All of the companies that play in that market, we are working hard to develop new alloys that can use more recycled aluminum and less primary metal. We work with our customers to get there.”
Palmieri said the industry is developing technologies to sort scrap “because that will improve our ability to use different types of scraps.” He added that recycling is “a top goal” for the U.S. aluminum industry.
Dobbins said more than 80 percent of U.S. aluminum production is recycled metal, up from 20 percent in the 1980s.
He said the industry is working to get back more postconsumer scrap. “Our biggest challenge is because of our longevity, we end up being in place for longer,” he said of aluminum in building applications.
Later this year, the Aluminum Association plans to release a new life cycle assessment report (last updated in 2014) tracking the environmental impact of producing a unit of aluminum product in North America in several different markets. This is part of a suite of sustainability research and reporting the association produces on an ongoing basis in other markets, including packaging, automotive and building and construction.
The Aluminum Association says it advocates for policies including well-designed container deposit laws, recycling infrastructure investment, energy efficiency and advanced manufacturing research and other policies to ensure sustainable growth for U.S. aluminum.