African steel production up 7% in 2018

The World Steel Association (worldsteel) has released global crude steel production statistics for December and all of 2018. According to this data, the African region reported an almost 7% increase in production throughout the year, even though its production fell by almost 6% in December 2018.

Annual production in the region was 14.524 million tonnes. This is significantly higher by 6.9% compared to the 2017 production, which was only 13.593 million tonnes. Growth in steel production in Egypt and South Africa was partially offset by a decline in production in Libya, according to Worldsteel.

In 2018, Egypt produced 7.807 million tonnes of steel, representing almost 54% of the region's total production. Production in the country increased by 13.6% over the previous year. South Africa also reported a modest 0.4% increase in production to 6.327 million tonnes in 2018. In contrast, production in Libya has declined, down 7.5% from the previous year, reaching 390,000 tonnes in 2018. 422,000 tons in 2017.

In December 2018, the region recorded production of 1.143 million tons, which is significantly lower by 5.9% compared to the output on December 17 of 1.215 million tons. The decline in production was mainly due to a sharp decline in production in South Africa. Production in the country decreased by 16% over the year to 423,000 tonnes during the month. Other major producers in the region were Egypt (670,000 tonnes) and Libya (50,000 tonnes).