Crude steel production in Europe declined in 2018

In 2018, the top five steel producing countries in the region were Germany, Italy, France, Spain and Poland. European crude steel production reported a slight decline during 2018. Domestic production for the year was 168.072 million tonnes, according to the World Steel Association (worldsteel). This is slightly lower by 0.3% when compared to the region's 2017 production of 168.518 million tonnes. Crude steel production declined slightly in December 2018, down 0.1% from 13.191 million tonnes in December 17 to 13.176 million tonnes.

The aggregate production in the above five countries was 106.769 million tons, which is almost 64% of the total annual production in the EU-28 countries. Germany topped the list with 42.440 million tonnes of steel produced during the year. German production fell slightly by 2.0% over the previous year. Italy reported a slight increase in steel production during 2018. Italian production was 24.475 million tons, an increase of 1.7% year on year.

The production volume of other major producing countries is as follows: France (15.391 million tons), Spain (14.298 million tons) and Poland (10.165 million tons). All three countries reported a decrease in production compared to the previous year.