World steel output almost 2 million tonnes higher in July

Global – Asia’s top four producers all churned out more crude steel in July this year than in the corresponding month of 2015. Worldwide, however, steelmaking capacity utilisation was unchanged from July last year at 68.3% and was 3.7 percentage points lower than in June 2016, according to latest statistics from the World Steel Association (WSA).

China produced 66.807 million tonnes of crude steel in July for a year-on-year increase of 2.6% while a considerable 8.1% hike to 8.082 million tonnes was recorded by India.

Japan and South Korea registered gains of, respectively, 0.5% to 8.886 million tonnes and 1.5% to 6.009 million tonnes. On the flip side, EU-28 crude steel production was 4.6% lower in July this year at 12.986 million tonnes, the USA suffered a drop of 2.2% to 6.877 million tonnes and Brazil’s total slid 6% to 2.705 million tonnes.

However, the combined output of all 66 countries reporting to the WSA was 1.4% higher than in July last year at 133.742 million tonnes – equivalent to an increase of around 1.8 million tonnes. But when rolling together data for the first seven months of the year, global crude steel production fell 1.2% from 941.351 million tonnes in January-July 2015 to 929.633 million tonnes this time around.

Gains in India (+4.8% to 54.958 million tonnes), Ukraine (+10.3% to 14.477 million tonnes) and Turkey (+3.6% to 19.152 million tonnes) were more than offset by declines elsewhere, including a 0.5% dip in Chinese output to 466.516 million tonnes.

EU-28 crude steel production was running 5.8% behind January-July 2015 levels at 95.752 million tonnes while the totals for South America (-13.3% to 22.604 million tonnes) and Africa (-15.6% to 6.907 million tonnes) dropped even more sharply.