We have seen that prices have fallen much faster than expected, says CEO Johnny Sjöström about the challenged European market.
The low prices in Europe are due, among other things, to the fact that China, after the US tariffs, has chosen to focus more on the European market.
As soon as imports increase slightly, prices fall and we have seen that, says Johnny Sjöström and adds that prices fell quickly during the second quarter.
During the third quarter, the steel company will take several measures to keep production costs down in Europe, including planned maintenance.
But we will also review the cost structure in general.
Högre priser i USA
More cheerful is the situation for SSAB's production in the USA. The American division is pulling up the result after the tariffs have resulted in higher prices in the USA.
We believe that it will continue to be good prices and local prices in the USA and not global prices.
SSAB has around 30 percent of its production and sales in the USA. Mainly, plate is manufactured for the American market. For the significantly smaller proportion of plate that has been imported from the Nordic countries to the USA, the steel company has already notified its customers of price increases.
It is necessary for us to pass on these American tariffs to American manufacturers and customers.
Resultat sjönk
The steel company SSAB reports an operating profit of 2.1 billion kronor for the second quarter. This can be compared to the profit of 3.0 billion kronor for the same period last year.
Revenues fell at the same time to 25.6 billion kronor, compared to 28.3 billion kronor a year earlier.
Analysts had expected sales of 27.0 billion kronor during the quarter, according to Bloomberg.
