WSA: sub-70% steel capacity utilisation in October

Global – Crude steel capacity utilisation for the 66 countries reporting to the World Steel Association was 68.3% in October – the fourth month in a row that a figure below 70% has been recorded. The October number represented a drop of 3.4 percentage points over the same month last year and of one percentage point when compared to September 2015.

In the first 10 months of the year as a whole, global crude steel production fell 2.5% from 1.38 billion tonnes in 2014 to 1.346 billion tonnes this time around, with only India and Germany posting increases among the world’s leading steelmaking nations. The former upped its production by 3.3% to 75.075 million tonnes while the latter’s output edged 0.3% higher.

The USA posted crude steel output declines of 8.8% both for October and for the year to date while the EU-28 saw its production fall 0.7% to 141.586 million tonnes over the opening 10 months of this year. Turkey’s output actually increased by 2% in October, although the 10-month total of 26.554 million tonnes was almost 7% short of that for the corresponding period in 2014.

A Chinese production decline of 3.1% to 66.124 million tonnes in October contributed to a fall of 2.2% in the year to date to 675.104 million tonnes. Meanwhile, Japanese production dropped by 3.8% in October and by 5.1% for the year to date to 87.815 million tonnes.