<<<This growth will add >450,000 tonnes to demand next year ..... is there really that much idled capacity ?
There is an interesting graph at the follwing URL (Rio Algom's Annual Report)
rioalgom.com
The graph illustrates future demand and supply as forecast by Brook Hunt. It seems to show consumption this year at 14.6MM tonnes, barely more than figures implied for 1999 in your recent memo on consumption. However, for next year it shows consumption growing to 15.2MM tonnes, an increase of 600,000 tonnes !
Who am I to argue ? But when you consider that before the Asian crisis world demand had grown at a compound rate of 4.1% through the nineties,and had reached 16,000,000 tonnes per annum, these figures could be rather conservative.
Between 1993 and 1994 consumption grew by 835,000 tonnes and between 1996 - 1997 they grew by 807,000 tonnes, according to the chart referred to in my last memo. |
