3. Probable consequences of these developments

As we have just seen, major disruptions to raw material prices and, even more so, to their transport, have led to considerable increases in the costs and, of course, the prices of steel products, without much changing the situation of the processes in relation to each other. What's more, the first part of this dossier showed that it takes a long time (and a lot of money!) to develop new processes. This raises the question of whether these disruptions, and probably others to come, will lead to changes in the structure of the global steel industry. We will examine this question at four levels:

• the global geography of steel consumption, with a major shift from the Atlantic Basin to the Pacific, and from old industrial countries to developing regions, notably Asia;

• steel production, which is also moving to Asia,...