Africa’s Colourful and Emerging Steel Market

As you may know, there is a good and emerging market in Africa, because the demand of Steel Products is strong for the region’s development, whilst the markets in Europe and America are already quite mature.

More and more trading companies are focusing on Africa and would like to grasp the exciting opportunity to obtain more and more market share in the shortest possible time.

The Steel Products we’ve experienced a heavy demand for in Africa range from Hot Rolled Steel Plate, Galvanized Steel Sheet and Galvanized Steel Coil to Black Welded Pipe and Square Tube or Rectangular Tube. These Steel Products are indeed a diverse mix in this market and the quantity, per type of Steel Product requested in this region, is very abundant.

No trading company dealing with the Steel Products in this industry can let this excellent opportunity pass by. It is, however, obvious that good and bad quality Steel Products are intermingled in this market.

Several months ago, we received an inquiry of 500 tons of Square Tube and Rectangular Tube (Square Tube: 25x25x0.75 --50x50x0.75mm, length 5.7m). As we have affluent experience, we tried our best to provide the best and latest steel prices based on the wall thickness tolerance +/-10%, but our customer received another price nearly 20USD/TON lower than our offer. It was clear that this rival supplier must be providing a much larger wall thickness tolerance to achieve such a low quotation. It was indeed proved that we were right, because when the customer received the Square Tube and Rectangular Tube, the wall thickness was far thinner than his request and he was not satisfied at all.

In order to avoid such problems, we always recommend our customers to carry out an SGS or BV inspection before the goods are delivered to the port. It is equally important to stipulate this in the contract you sign with your supplier, as it will push the supplier to take extra special care in ensuring the Square Tube or Rectangular Tube for example, will indeed be manufactured to the parameters agreed upon in the contract. This way it will give you better peace of mind in knowing the Steel Products you receive will be spot on.