China ups the steel output pace in September

Asia – Year-to-date crude steel production in China moved ahead of 2015 levels following a significant increase in September. The country’s output was 3.9% higher than in the same month last year at 68.17 million tonnes to give a running total of 603.78 million tonnes for the first three quarters of this year, which equates to an increase of 0.4% over the same period in 2015.

Combined, the 66 countries reporting their figures to the World Steel Association produced 132.909 million tonnes of crude steel in September for a year-on-year upturn of 2% whereas the 1.197 billion tonnes generated by them across the first nine months of the year as a whole represented a decline of 0.5% over the 2015 figure of 1.204 billion tonnes.

Crude steel capacity utilisation in September this year was 70% in global terms, as compared to 68.5% in the preceding month and 69.5% in September 2015.

Of the world’s leading producer nations, China was joined by only India (+5.9% to 71.09 million tonnes), Turkey (+4.1% to 24.437 million tonnes) and Ukraine (+7% to 18.281 million tonnes) in producing more crude steel in January-September 2016 than in last year’s corresponding period.