According to the World Steel Association (worldsteel), world crude steel production in August 2010 was almost at the same level as August 2008, before the impact of the global economic crisis.
However, while China, Turkey and Iran showed increased crude steel production in August 2010 compared to the same month in 2008, the US, Germany, Italy, Brazil and Japan are not yet back to pre-crisis production levels.
Comparing y-o-y August crude steel outputs, China’s output was 51.6Mt in 2010 a decrease of 1.1% compared to August 2009.
Japan produced 8.9Mt, up 7.1%; South Korea’s production was 4.5Mt, up 6.4%.
US produced at 6.9Mt showed an increase of 23.7% while in Europe, Germany, the largest producer, saw production up 17.1% at 3.5Mt.
Overall, the EU saw output increase 15.5% with only Bulgaria, Czech Republic and UK showing a decline. UK’s fall of –3.1% is attributed to the closure of the Redcar furnace on Teesside.
Turkey produced 2.5Mt, an 11.3% increase and Brazil produced 2.9Mt, a 7.8% increase.
The crude steel capacity utilisation ratio of the 66 countries in August 2010 continued to decline to a year low of 73.1% from 74.4% in July 2010. Compared to August 2009, the utilisation ratio in August 2010 decreased by 1.1%.
World crude steel production in July this year was 115Mt.
For the first eight months 2010, world output is up 21.9% at 929.9Mt over the same period 2009 and up just 0.2% over the same period 2008.
The increase over 2008 was driven by a 14.9% rise in the Middle East and a 13.3% increase in Asia driven mainly by China and India, all other regions showing declines.
For a full listing of statistics go to www.worldsteel.org/?action=stats&type=steel&period=latest