World Steel Production Recovering

Crude steel production in the 66 countries that report to the Brussels-based World Steel Association was 124 million metric tons during May, a 29.1 percent increase over May 2009.

Chinese production was up 20.7 percent year-over-year, to 56.1 million metric tons. Japan produced 9.7 million metric tons and South Korea produced 5.2 million metric tons.

Production in the EU was also on the upswing. German production jumped 87.7 percent year-over-year, to 4.1 million metric tons. Italy increased 42 percent to 2.5 million metric tons, and Spain was up 24.9 percent.

Turkey produced 2.5 million metric tons of crude steel in May 2010, an 18.8 percent increase; the U.S. produced 7.2 million metric tons, a 73.8 percent increase; and Brazil produced 2.9 million metric tons, a 50.8 percent increase.

However, while overall steel production is recovering from the lows of the recession, many regions have not bounced back to 2007 levels. China, South Korea and Turkey’s May 2010 production beat May 2007, but the EU, North America, Japan and Latin America are still down in comparison.

World crude steel capacity utilization ratio was 82 percent in May, a slight fall-off from April’s 83.4 percent. However, May 2010 was a15 percent jump in capacity utilization over May 2009.