On Tuesday, the world's largest steel producer, Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal, presented its full year results for 2011 and its results for the fourth quarter of that year. Whereas the full year results are on the positive side, the Q4 results gave rise to some concern.

In 2011, the company made a net income of 2.3 billion $, that's 1.46 $ per share. In 2010, ArcelorMittal had a net income of 2.9 billion $ or 1.93 $ per share.

For the whole of 2011, sales increased 20.4% to 94.0 billion $ as compared with 78.0 billion $ for 2010. This is primarily down to higher average steel selling prices (+17.7%) and marginally higher steel shipments (+0.9%), the company says.

Operating income for 2011 was 4.9 billion $, compared with 3.6 billion $ for 2010.

However, the company's results in the fourth quarter of last year were slightly less positive. For the three months that ended on December 31, 2011 ArcelorMittal recorded a net loss of 1.0 billion $, compared with net income of 0.7 billion $ for the three previous months and a net loss of 0.8 billion $ for the three months that ended on December 31, 2010.

Total steel shipments during Q4 2011 were 20.6 million metric tonnes as compared with 21.1 million metric tonnes for the same period in 2010.

Sales during Q4 2011 decreased by 7.3% to 22.4 billion $ as compared with 24.2 billion $ for the three previous months. They were up by 8.5% however, compared to the same period 2010.

 Sales were lower during the fourth quarter of 2011 as compared to the third quarter of 2011 primarily due to lower average steel selling prices (-6.2%) and lower steel shipment volumes (- 2.5%).

On Tuesday afternoon, the management of the Luxembourgish ArcelorMittal locations presented its own take on the 2011 results : 

The year 2011 at the Luxembourg plants was marked by difficult EU market conditions, especially in the construction industry. The production of long products in Luxembourg amounted to 2.6 million tonnes, a drop of 161,000 tonnes or 5.8% over the preceding year. Shipments fell by 35,000 tonnes to 2.7 million tonnes. Globally, and in light of the idling of the steelworks at Schifflange in the fourth quarter, production levels decreased 95,000 tonnes (-3.6 %). The steelworks at Belval and Differdange recorded a better performance in Q4. At the flat carbon site at Dudelange, the second half of the year, although weaker than the first half, had a satisfactory level of activity. It should be noted that the Dudelange site successfully produced Usibor steel, a high technology product for the automotive sector that should experience strong growth in the coming years. The economic environment in the European construction sector also had an impact on the production of reinforcing bars in Luxembourg. As a consequence, ArcelorMittal decided, in September, to run at reduced capacity and to temporarily idle certain production lines at Rodange and Schifflange. These two sites continued to make considerable financial losses, namely -€31 million in 2011 and -€36 million in 2010.