SWIX Blog

30 million tonnes wiped off world steel output

Source: recyclinginternational.com

Global:  Capacity utilisation in the global crude steelmaking sector was short of 70% in September – the third consecutive month spent below this threshold. The utilisation rate of 69.3% was four percentage points below that of the same month last year but 1.3 percentage points ahead of that for August 2015.

Meanwhile, world crude steel output across the first nine months of 2015 was more than 30 million tonnes or 2.4% lower than in the same period last year at 1.212 billion tonnes. Latest statistics from the World Steel Association (WSA) confirm that, among the main producing countries and regions, year-on-year growth was restricted to India (+3.1% to 67.575 million tonnes), the Middle East (+1% to 20.908 million tonnes) and Oceania (+5.5% to 4.342 million tonnes).

Apart from conflict-hit Ukraine (-20.5% to 17.106 million tonnes), the steepest year-on-year crude steel output falls were recorded by Turkey with a drop of 7.8% to 23.78 million tonnes and the USA, where production slid 8.6% in January-September this year to 60.629 million tonnes.

Japan’s total was 5.2% lower at 78.81 million tonnes while China recorded a decline of 2.1% to 608.94 million tonnes. Far smaller reductions in output were registered by the EU-28 (-0.3% to 127.473 million tonnes), South America (-1.4% to 33.35 million tonnes), Russia (-0.5% to 53.304 million tonnes) and Africa (-0.1% to 10.685 million tonnes), according to the WSA statistics.