Photo by: Duane Daws
South Africa’s crude steel production dropped by a sizeable 17.2% year-on-year to an estimated 530 000 t in April, amplifying a global trend that saw world steel production decline by a comparatively marginal 1.7% to 135-million tons in the fourth month of the year.
According to figures from the World Steel Association (worldsteel), steel output from China dipped 0.7% year-on-year to 68.9-million tons in April, while island neighbour Japan’s production decreased by 6.1% to 8.4-million tons over the same period.
India produced 7.4-million tons of crude steel – an increase of 2.1% year-on-year – while South Korea’s steel output narrowed by 6.6% to 5.8-million tons in April.
In the European Union, Germany’s production of crude steel narrowed by 1.9% to 3.6-million tons in April, while Italy’s output shrank 8.5% to 1.9-million tons for the month, worldsteel outlined in a statement on Friday.
Spain narrowed its contribution by 6.4% to 1.3-million tons of crude steel in April, while France dropped output 9% to 1.3-million tons over the period.
To the east, Turkey managed to increase its crude steel production by 3.9% to 2.8-million tons in April, while Russia’s output improved by 3.2% to 6.1-million tons year-on-year.
Ukraine’s output decreased by a hefty 24.9% to 1.9-million tons in April. Production from the US declined by 9.8% year-on-year to 6.5-million tons.
In South America, Brazil’s crude steel production for April increased by 4.4% 2.9-million tons.
The crude steel capacity utilisation ratio for the 65 countries reporting to worldsteel narrowed 3.2 percentage points year-on-year to 72.5% in April.