South Africa produced an estimated 1.56-million tonnes of steel in the first quarter of the year, the World Steel Association (worldsteel) said on Monday.
This was roughly the same as the 1.54-million tonnes produced in the first quarter of 2016 and came on the back of flat year-on-year production in March of 539 000 t.
Total global steel production for the 67 countries reporting to worldsteel reached 145-million tonnes during March, a 4.6% increase, while first quarter production totalled 410.5-million tonnes, up by 5.7% year-on-year.
Asia produced 280.6-million tonnes of steel, a 5.4% increase year-on-year. This was owing to China’s March crude steel production of 72-million tonnes, an increase of 1.8% compared with March 2016. Japan produced 8.9-million tonnes in March, an increase of 1.8%.
The European Union produced 42.5-million tonnes of crude steel in the first quarter, up 3.8% year-on-year, with Germany recording a 1.9% year-on-year increase to 3.9-million tonnes during March, Italy producing 9.5% more crude steel at 2.2-million tonnes and Spain producing 1.4-million tonnes, up 15.7%.
France produced 1.3-million tonnes of crude steel, up by 18.1% compared with March 2016.
The Commonwealth of Independent States produced 25.9-million tonnes of crude steel in the first three months of 2017, an increase of 4% over the same months of 2016.
Turkey’s crude steel production for March was 3.1-million tonnes, up 14%.
North America’s crude steel production reached 29.3-million tonnes, a 7.1% increase.