October crude steel production up 1.3% year-on-year, worldsteel says

Global steel production in October 2012 increased by 1.3% compared with the same month last year, the World Steel Assn (worldsteel) said on Tuesday November 20.

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Total crude steel production for October, from the 62 countries that report to worldsteel, totalled 126.1 million tonnes, up year-on-year by 1.3% from 124.6 million.

China’s total output for October climbed to 59.1 million tonnes, up from last year’s 55.7 million tonnes, jumping by 6%.

In contrast, other Asian countries such as South Korea and Japan saw year-on-year drops in crude steel production, falling to 5.8 million tonnes from 6.1 million tonnes and to 8.8 million tonnes from 9.5 million tonnes, respectively.

Countries within the European Union (EU27) also saw a general fall in crude steel output, producing a total of 14.2 million tonnes in October 2012, in comparison with 15.2 million tonnes a year earlier.

While Germany’s crude steel production picked up by 0.3% to 3.69 million tonnes from last year’s 3.68 million tonnes, Italy’s overall production dropped significantly to 2.4 million tonnes from 2.7 million tonnes in October of last year, according to worldsteel.

French crude steel production fell to 1.3 million tonnes, down by 7.2% from 1.4 million tonnes a year earlier. Spain’s total steel produced similarly fell in October, to 1.1 million tonnes from last year’s 1.3 million tonnes.

Greece suffered the largest percentage fall within the EU, down by 45.8% to an estimated 110,000 tonnes from 203,000 tonnes in October 2011.

Outside the EU27, Turkey suffered a year-on-year drop of 6.9% in crude steel production to 2.9 million tonnes from 3.1 million tonnes.

The USA produced 6.9 million tonnes of crude steel, a 3.3% decrease from 7.2 million tonnes last October.

But Brazil’s crude production increased by 7.7% to 3.2 million tonnes, from 2.9 million tonnes.

Capacity utilisation for the 62 member states fell to 76.5% in October, down from 77.7% in September 2012.