The phenomena of metal consumption: industrial competition and metal consumption patterns.

Summary Existing models for forecasting metal consumption, based on simple relationships between consumption of metallurgical products and macroeconomic indicators, are no longer able to provide reliable results. The saturation and segmentation of the durable goods and equipment markets, the fragmentation of the end-use markets for metals, and the intensification of competition between materials are all phenomena that have become major after the oil shocks and that simple models are unable to take into account. The functional analysis model, based on the concept of the consumption chain, makes it possible to take into account, in the analysis of market dynamics, all the determining factors in the entire metal processing and use chain.