Domestic steel production increases by 5.4% in January-July of 2017

4th Sept

Domestic steel production increased by 5.4% in the January-July period of 2017 to 58.01 million tonne (mt) over 55.07 mt in the same period of 2016, according to the latest report from World Steel Association (WSA) which compiles global steel production data from 67 countries reporting to it.

For the first seven months of 2017, global steel production went up to to 977.32 mt, up 4.6% from 933.97 mt in the same period of 2016. In July 2017, global steel production stood at 143.24 mt, showing a rise of 6.3% over 134.79 mt in July 2016. Out of this China, the world’s leading steel producer reported an output of 74.02 mt last month, up 10.3% over July 2016, when the country had produced 67.12 mt.

India’s crude steel output grew 3.5% to 8.36 mt in July this year, the report added. India’s steel output stood at 8.08 mt in the same month last year, it said. India which strode past the US to become the third largest steel producer is poised to emerge as the world’s second largest steel producer replacing Japan. The latter reported a decline in its steel production by 4.3% to 8.58 mt against 8.97 mt a year ago while the US produced 7.07 mt, up 5.6 % from 6.69 mt earlier.

“The crude steel capacity utilisation ratio of the 67 countries in July 2017 was 72.1%. This is 3.2 percentage points higher than July 2016. Compared to June 2017, it is 1.5 percentage points lower,” worldsteel said in a statement.

Source-ET