Worldwide crude steel output up 3% year-on-year in July

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This compared with 128.9 million tonnes produced in July 2012.

The world’s biggest producer, China, posted a 6.2% year-on-year rise in output to 65.5 million tonnes, while production in Japan went up by 0.5% to 9.3 million tonnes.

Contrastingly, South Korean crude steel output fell to 5.6 million tonnes, down by 5.8% year-on-year compared with July 2012 figures.

In Europe, production in Germany decreased by 5.4% last month to 3.4 million tonnes of crude steel, while Italian output fell by 8.5% to 2.2 million tonnes.

Spain and France also followed the downward trend, with crude steel output down by 3.4% and 9% respectively to 961,000 tonnes and 1.1 million tonnes.

In Turkey, crude steel output also fell sharply to 2.8 million tonnes, a 10.1% drop compared with production in July 2012.

In the Americas, there were diverging trends, with the USA reporting a 3.3% year-on-year output rise in July to 7.6 million tonnes, while Brazil recorded a drop of 1.4% to 3 million tonnes.

Russia produced 5.7 million tonnes of crude steel last month, a 2.4% year-on-year reduction. Ukraine, however, posted an 8.8% increase in output in July 2013 to 2.8 million tonnes.

Iran, the biggest producer in the Middle East-North Africa region, also reported a rise of 16.1% in output, to 1.3 million tonnes.

Capacity utilisation for the 64 countries that are members of worldsteel declined to 76.8% in July, down from 79.2% in June 2013.