Global steel production running around 2% lower

Global – World crude steel production was more than 13 million tonnes lower in the opening five months of 2015 than in the corresponding period last year at 675.628 million tonnes – equivalent to a decline of 1.9%, according to latest figures supplied by 65 countries to the World Steel Association. In May alone, the differential was 3 million tonnes to the downside.

When comparing the two five-month periods, China’s output fell around 5.5 million tonnes this year to 340.164 million tonnes, the US total slid more than 3 million tonnes or 8.6% to 33.129 million tonnes, and Japan recorded a drop of 4.4% to 44.063 million tonnes.

Meanwhile, the world’s largest steel scrap importer, Turkey, cut its crude steel production by 5.9% to 13.347 million tonnes. On the other side of the equation, production in India jumped 6.1% in this year’s January-May period to 37.652 million tonnes and Russia posted a gain of 3.2% to 30.269 million tonnes. On a year-on-year basis, EU crude steel output edged 0.7% higher in May but was down 0.1% across the whole five months.

Crude steel capacity utilisation for the 65 reporting countries was 72.1% in May – a drop of 3.4 percentage points from the same month last year and of 0.4 percentage points from April 2015.