In North Africa, there are major infrastructure projects – either under construction or still in the planning stages – with investment totaling close to $680 billion, according to Richard Thompson, editorial director at Middle East and North Africa business intelligence platform Meed. But only around 10% of this investment, or $68 billion, will be spent on steel, a steel producer based in North Africa told Fastmarkets on the sidelines of the conference. Thus, these projects may generate roughly 10 million tonnes of steel demand in the region, according to Fastmarkets’ calculations based on the average annual rebar price in Egypt, the largest steel-consuming country in North Africa. But some of these projects are expected to take more than 10 years to reach completion. The price of domestic rebar in Egypt averaged E£12,527 ($697) per tonne ex-works, including 14% VAT, in 2018, according to Fastmarkets’ assessment....

Source: The North Africa Journal December 28, 2018 10:18 UTC