The “good health” of the iron and steel industry economy of theArab world

Abstract

The Arab world has been less affected by the financial crisis of 2008–2009 than manyother regions of the world. As an illustration, the apparent steel consumption has beengrowing to a level of 40 to 45 Mt/year, like in China or India but not so fast. The steelproduction is also growing, but is still in the range of 15 to 17 Mt/year: the region is alarge steel importer, around 30 Mt/year. It is interesting to note that this trade is,essentially, between the two sides of the Mediterranean Sea. Regarding the production, itmust be remembered that this area has the special feature of being based on the directreduction of the iron ores through the natural gas-based processes such as Midrex or Energiron (ex – HYL). Steelmaking is carried out inEAF (electric arc furnaces) and it must be noted that, in the Marrakesh congress, theTurkish delegation mentioned that a new company in this country is designing andmanufacturing electric arc furnaces for mini-mills based on scrap. A last point has to bestressed: the diversification of the steel products made in the Arab world. After a timewhere the emphasis was on light long products (reinforcing bars and light profiles), theproduction is now moving to heavy products such as beams and tubes, and flat products.