SMR Premium studies open-die forging market, Open-Die Forging Book directory

DUSSELDORF, Germany -- The global open-die forging industry is looking back to some of the more difficult years in history. However new developments and challenging requirements from the markets lead to an especially increasing demand for high quality forgings. The global open-die forging market reached a volume of 5.2 MMt in 2017, an increase of 5% over the year 2016 as selected markets recovered.

Overall the main markets for open-die forgings are in different phases of their business cycle. The aerospace industry is promising steady growth, the automotive industry growing but at a declining rate, the power generation industry (renewables, nuclear) growing, the processing industry still struggling with reduced capital expenditures, the oil & gas industry recovering from a severe down turn and finally the hardest hit conventional power generation industry returning to a growth phase as the world is demanding for more and more electricity.

Production of open-die forgings in 2017 can be split by region into Europe 34%, America 11%, China 27%, Other Asia 16% and ROW (incl. India, Russia) 12%. Total Asia accounts for 43% of supply. The installed capacity is still outweighing the actual demand from the industry, however there exist larger differences in the capacity utilization (CAPU) depending on the individual company.

The demand for open die forgings is to grow at a CAGR rate of 4.8% from 2017 to 2020 and will grow the strongest in America followed by Asia, Europe and ROW. In terms of demand for selected steel grades highest growth will come from more demanding applications requiring stainless steel forgings (recovery of oil & gas industry) and value add alloy steel forgings as well as alloy tool steel forgings.

SMR Premium is publishing a new Open-Die Forging Book. It is the first, comprehensive handbook of open die forging producers, including company profiles of more than 270 global producers and a separate chapter about forging market data.

SMR Premium GmbH is as a boutique consultancy based in Düsseldorf, focusing on the markets of remelted steels, forged products and high value metals, like Titanium and Powder Metallurgy. The company belongs to the 25 years-old SMR Group based in Austria.