South Africa lifted its overall steel production by 4.1% in 2013, increasing output from 6.9-million tons in 2012 to 7.2-million tons, making it the twenty-first largest steel producing country in the world.

The World Steel Association (worldsteel) revealed on Thursday that world crude steel production reached 1.6-billion tons for the year, up by 3.5% on 2012, with growth originating largely in Asia and Middle East.

In contrast, crude steel production in all other regions decreased in 2013 compared with the prior year.

In the last month of 2013, world crude steel production for the 65 countries reporting to worldsteel increased by 6.3% to 129.3-million tons, while the crude steel capacity utilisation ratio declined to 74.2% from 75.8% in November.

Asia’s yearly production of 1.08-billion tons reflected an increase of 6% on 2012, with the region’s share of world steel production increasing slightly from 65.7% in 2012 to 67.3% in 2013.

China’s crude steel production for the year reached 779-million tons, an increase of 7.5% on 2012, pushing its share of world crude steel production up from 46.7% in 2012 to 48.5% in 2013.

Elsewhere in Asia, Japan produced 110.6-million tons in 2013, a 3.1% increase from 2012, while South Korea’s crude steel production was 66-million tons, a decrease of 4.4% compared with 2012.

Meanwhile, the European Union recorded a decrease of 1.8% compared with 2012, producing 165.6-million tons of crude steel in 2013.

Germany’s contribution of 42.6-million tons remained flat on the prior year, while steel output from Italy dropped by 11.7% year-on-year to 24.1-million tons.

France increased its crude steel production by 0.5% to 15-million tons, while Spain produced 13.7-million tons of crude steel in 2013, a 0.7% increase on the prior year.

Russia, meanwhile, produced 69.4-million tons, a decrease of 1.5% on 2012, and Ukraine recorded a decrease of 0.5% with a year-end figure of 32.8-million tons.

Looking to North America, production from the region dipped by 1.9% year-on-year to 119.3-million tons, largely driven by a 2% narrowing of output from the US, which produced 87-million tons of crude steel over the year.

Yearly crude steel production for South America totalled 46-million tons in 2013, a decrease of 0.8% on 2012, with Brazil narrowing output by 1% to 34.2-million tons.