Steelmaking revival evident in global statistics

Steelmakers around the world continue to respond to post-COVID-19-restrictions demand for their products with output that is outpacing 2020 levels.  

In the first half of 2021, crude steel production for the 64 countries reporting to the Brussels-based Worldsteel Association has amounted to more than 1 million metric tons. That represents a 14.4 percent increase over the amount of steel produced in the first half of 2020.

Global output in the month of June rose 11.6 percent compared with June 2020. Steel production in Europe, the Americas and Africa in June 2021 rose from 35 to 51 percent compared with June 2020, when restrictions in many nations were just starting to lift.

In the first half of 2021, the United States was the world’s fourth-largest producer of steel (42 million metric tons), trailing Japan (48.1 million metric tons), India (57.9 million metric tons) and China (563 million metric tons). America’s output rose by 15.5 percent compared with the first half of 2020.

Year-to-date, steelmakers in Turkey have produced 19.7 percent more steel than they did in the first half of 2020, while steelmakers in India have churned out 31.3 percent more product. The two nations provide steady export markets for American ferrous scrap processors.

Electric arc furnace (EAF) producers in South America also are showing a growing appetite for U.S. scrap in 2021, perhaps driven in part by that continent’s 28.1 percent rise in steel output in the first half of the year.

Brazil, the largest steel-producing nation in South America, produced more than 18 million metric tons of steel in the first half of 2021, representing a 24 percent jump in output compared with the first half of last year, when the presence of COVID-19 was widespread. Traders have reported an uptick in North American scrap purchases from steelmakers there, true to the country’s pattern as a sporadic participant in the U.S. scrap market.