South Africa’s crude steel production rallied 24.5% year-on-year to 625 000 t in September, bucking a global trend that saw global crude steel production for the 66 countries reporting to the World Steel Association (worldsteel) dipping 3.7% to 131-million tons.

Turkey registered the largest production dip, narrowing crude steel output by 14.1% to 2.5-million tons in September, followed by Brazil, which saw a 13% decrease in steel production to 2.5-million tons, and the US and France, both of which suffered an 8.5% production dip to 6.7-million tons and 1.3-million tons respectively.

Worldsteel reported that, in the first nine months of 2015, Asia produced 828.9-million tons of crude steel, a decrease of 2% over the first three quarters of 2014, while steel output by the European Union (EU) narrowed by a marginal 0.3% to 127.5-million tons in the first nine months of the year.

North America’s crude steel production in the first nine months dropped 6.8% to 85.1-million tons compared with the first three quarters of 2014, while the Commonwealth of Independent States produced 75.9-million tons of crude steel over the period – a decrease of 5.8% on the same period in 2014.

Meanwhile, China’s crude steel production for September narrowed 3% to 66.1-million tons, while nearby island nation Japan’s output dropped 7.3% to 8.6-million tons for the month and India, at 7.3-million tons, produced 1.4% less crude steel in September.

In the EU, Germany produced 3.4-million tons of crude steel in September, a decrease of 3.9% year-on-year, while Italy narrowed its output crude steel production by 3.9% to 2.1-million tons and Spain delivered 1.3-million tons, or 8.5% more steel in September.

Russia’s output narrowed 3.2% to 5.5-million tons in September, while Ukraine saw a 14.1% jump in its steel production to 2.1-million tons for the month.

In the Middle East, Iran produced 1.3-million tons of crude steel in September, down by 6.4% compared with the same month in the prior year.

The crude steel capacity utilisation ratio for the 66 countries in September 2015 was 69.3% in September – four percentage points lower than the prior year.