World Steel output up 2% in January on impressive China figures
Biznextindia: World Crude Steel output has remained in the positive zone, despite drop in production in most of the leading steel producing countries except China. According to the data released by the world steel association, World Steel output has increased by 2.1% to 154.4 million tonnes (Mt) in January.
Despite outbreak of Coronavirus China has reported 7.2% rise in Crude steel production at 84.3 Mt in January. However, other leading producers like India, Japan and South Korea have reported decline in production during the month.
India, the 2nd largest producer has reported 3.2% drop in steel production at 9.3%. The slum in Indian steel production is being attributed to weak demand in the domestic market. Japan, the 3rd largest producer of the alloy, produced 8.2 Mt of crude steel, a drop of 1.3%. Similarly, South Korea’s crude steel production was 5.8 Mt in January, a decrease of 8.0% as compared to January 2019.
In the European Union, Italy & France’s January steel output dropped by 4.9% and 4.5% to 1.9 Mt and 1.3 Mt respectively. Meanwhile, The US produced 7.7 Mt of crude steel in January 2020, an increase of 2.5% compared to January 2019. Brazil’s crude steel production for January 2020 was 2.7 Mt, down by 11.1% on January 2019. Crude steel production in Ukraine was 1.8 Mt last month, down 0.4% on January 2019.