Global crude steel output falls in October

The World Steel Association (worldsteel) says that global crude steel output from its 64 reporting countries was 151.5 million tonnes in October 2019, down -2% year-on-year, Kallanish notes.

China produced 81.5mt in the month, a fall of just -0.6% on October 2018 but still well over half of the world’s crude steel output.

Crude steel production in India was 9.1mt, down by -3.4% from October 2018 whilst output in Japan was also fell, by -4.9% to 8.2mt. South Korean production fell by -3.5% y-on-y during the month to reach 6.0mt.

In the EU28 total October crude steel production fell by -8.7% y-o-y to 13.3mt. Output in Germany also moved down by -6.8% to 3.7mt. Monthly production also dipped on-year in Italy, falling by  -3.7% to 2.2mt. French crude steel output tumbled on-year in October by -10.6% to 1.2mt. Spanish output decreased by -7.6% to 1.2mt.

Turkish production was 2.7mt in the month, down by a significant -15.0% y-o-y.

US crude steel output was 7.4mt in October 2019, an on-year decrease of -2.0% whilst in Brazil crude steel production was 2.6mt, down by a whopping -19.4% on October 2018.

Russian estimated production was 5.9mt in the month, 2.4% up on-year. Ukraine’s output fell meanwhile to 1.6mt, down by -12.7%, same basis.

For antitrust reasons worldsteel no longer produces a monthly global capacity utilisation ratio. Information on capacity can be found on the OECD website, worldsteel says.