Crude steel production down by almost 4 percent, Worldsteel says

Photo © Ronnie Patrick | Dreamstime.com; Worldsteel chart

World crude steel production for the 65 countries reporting to the Brussels-based World Steel Association (Worldsteel) was 133 million metric tons in July 2015, a 3.8 percent decrease compared with July 2014.

The crude steel capacity utilisation ratio for the 65 countries in July 2015 was 68.4 percent. This is 4.2 percentage points lower than July 2014. Compared with June 2015, it is 3.8 percentage points lower.

Many countries reporting to Worldsteel indicated declines in production for the month of July compared with July 2014.

China’s crude steel production for July 2015 was 65.8 million metric tons, down by 4.6 percent compared with July 2014. Production in Japan was down 4.9 percent from July 2014, to a level of 8.8 million metric tons.

The U.S. produced 7.0 million metric ton of crude steel in the month, down by 9.1 percent compared with July 2014. Russia produced 6.0 million metric tons of crude steel, down by 2.8 percent from July 2014. Ukraine produced 1.9 million metric tons of crude steel, a decrease of 24.1 percent compared with the same month in 2014. Turkey’s crude steel production for July 2015 was 2.5 million metric tons, down by 10.4 percent on July 2014, Worldsteel reports. And Germany produced 3.6 million metric tons of crude steel in July 2015, an increase of 4.7 percent compared with July 2014.

Meanwhile, India produced 7.7 million metric tons of crude steel in July, a level that is up by 1.2 percent from July 2014.