Steel production up 2% in May
By Davide Ghilotti
Published: Friday, 07 July 2017
Global steel output rose in May as increases from China, the US, Turkey and Brazil offset declines in Europe, worldsteel data show.
Global steel production rose 2% year-on-year (y-o-y) in May
to 143.3m tonnes, according to data from the World Steel
Association (worldsteel).
Chinese production for the month, at 72.3m tonnes, was 1.8%
above May 2016.
Non-Asian producers that also increased output included the US,
Turkey and Brazil.
Turkish production rose 9.7% y-o-y to 3.3m tonnes in the
month.
US production saw a marginal uptick of 0.2%, to 7m tonnes,
while Brazilian production increased by a sizeable 13.2% to
2.9m tonnes.
Japanese production stood at 9m tonnes (an increase of
0.1%).
In Europe, only France posted growth in May, with its output up
by 21.5% y-o-y to 1.4m tonnes.
Germany, Italy and Spain all reduced production.
German output in May stood at 3.8m tonnes (-1.4% y-o-y),
Italian production was 2.1m tonnes (-4.1%) and Spain recorded
1.2m tonnes (-3.7%).
For the 67 countries supplying data to worldsteel, the crude
steel capacity utilisation ratio in May was 71.8%, half a point
above last year and almost two points higher than in April.