World crude steel production for the 64 countries reporting to the World Steel Association (worldsteel) was 148.3Mt in March 2018, an increase of 4% compared to March 2017.
World crude steel production was 426.6 Mt in the first three months of 2018, up 4.1% compared to the same period in 2017. Asia produced 294.1 Mt of crude steel, an increase of 4.6% over Q1 2017. The EU produced 43.1 Mt, up 0.9% and North America’s crude steel production for the period was 29.5 Mt, up 1.9% compared to Q1 2017.
In China, crude steel production for March 2018 was 74.0 Mt, an increase of 4.5% compared to the same period last year, while India produced 9.2 Mt, up 5.3% compared with last March. Japan produced 9.1 Mt of crude steel in March 2018, an increase of 2.2%, and in South Korea crude steel production reached 6.1 Mt in March 2018, up 4.7% on last year's figure.
In the European Union, Italy produced 2.3 Mt of crude steel, up 1%, France produced 1.4 Mt, up 1.5%, and Spain produced 1.3 Mt of crude steel, down 4.1% on March 2017.
Turkey’s crude steel production for March 2018 was 3.4 Mt, up 7.6% on March 2017.
The USA produced 7.3 Mt of crude steel in March 2018, an increase of 5.3% and in Brazil, crude steel production for March 2018 was 3.1Mt, up 7.6% on March 2017 figures.
The crude steel capacity utilisation ratio of the 64 reporting countries in March 2018 was 74.5%. This is 2.2 percentage points higher than March 2017. Compared to February 2018, it is 0.9 percentage points higher.
