Photo by: BLOOMBERG
While world crude steel production for the 65 countries reporting to the World Steel Association dropped 3.8% year-on-year to 133-million tons in July, South African output rose 41% year-on-year to 645 000 t.
China’s crude steel production for July narrowed 4.6% year-on-year to 65.8-million tons, while Japan’s output dipped 4.9% to 8.8-million tons and Indian crude steel production increased 1.2% to 7.7-million tons.
In the European Union, Germany produced 3.6-million tons of crude steel in July – an increase of 4.7% compared with the same month in the prior year – while Turkey’s output narrowed 10.4% to 2.5-million tons and steel output from Russia dipped 2.8% to six-million tons.
Ukraine produced 1.9-million tons of crude steel, a decrease of 24.1% compared with the same month in 2014, while the US delivered seven-million tons of the metal – a 9.1% year-on-year decrease.
Elswhere, Brazil’s crude steel production for July narrowed 3.1% to 2.9-million tons, while, in the Middle East, Iran’s production decreased 1.3% to 1.3-million tons for the month.
The July crude steel capacity utilisation ratio for the 65 countries was 68.4% – 4.2 percentage points lower than in July 2014.