Global steel production in September 2012 saw no change year-on-year, according to the World Steel Assn (worldsteel) monthly report published on Monday October 22.
Total output amounted to 123.6 million tonnes, unchanged from a year earlier.
China, the world’s largest producer, increased its production by only 0.6% year-on-year to 57.9 million tonnes, from 57.6 million tonnes in September 2011.
South Korea’s production also increased, by 1.8% to 5.6 million tonnes from 5.5 million tonnes in 2011, but Japanese production fell by 1% to 8.8 million tonnes from last year’s 8.9 million tonnes.
Crude steel production in Europe fell significantly year-on-year, with Germany’s output down by 2.2% compared with September 2011 to 3.6 million tonnes, and Italy’s production falling by 7.8% year-on-year to 2.4 million tonnes.
Spanish and French production also dropped by 10.6% and 3%, respectively. Output in Spain declined to 1.2 million tonnes from last year’s 1.3 million tonnes, while in France output decreased to 1.27 tonnes from 1.31 million tonnes in September 2011.
Outside the EU, Turkey’s output increased by 1.9% in September, to 3.1 million tonnes from 3 million tonnes a year earlier, according to Worldsteel.
Russia reported a production increase of 15.1% of 6.2 million tonnes of crude steel.
US production fell by 3% to 7 million tonnes from 7.23 million tonnes in 2011.
Brazil’s crude steel output in September this year fell by 0.4% to 2.85 million tonnes from 2.86 million tonnes in the same month in 2011.
Capacity utilisation in the 62 countries reporting to worldsteel rose month-on-month to 77.7% in September from 75.5% in August.
Year-on-year, this represents a reduction of 2.5 percentage points from September 2011.
Alexandra Chapman
achapman@steelfirst.com
Twitter: @AChapman_SF
