Recovery in global steel production picks up steam in October

Crude steel production in the 64 countries reporting to the World Steel Association (worldsteel) rose 7% in October to 161.89 million tonnes year-on-year, gaining further momentum from growth in August and September.

Production in China continued to grow steadily, rising 12.7% in October to 92.2 million tonnes. Indian production finally bounced back to pre-coronavirus levels, up 0.9% to 9.06 million tonnes. However, production in Japan and South Korea fell by -11.7% and -1.8%, respectively, to 7.2 million tons and 5.86 million tons. Production in Vietnam increased by 112% to 3.37 million tons ...

In the EU-28 countries, production fell 5.6% in October to 12.61 million tons, despite the fact that production in Germany rose for the first time since the pandemic, by 3.1% to 3.42 million tons. However, production in Italy fell 4.6% to 2.12 million tonnes. Production has grown significantly in the Czech Republic, Finland and Sweden.

Production in Turkey continued to recover, rising 19.4% in October to 3.21 million tonnes.

Production in the United States fell 15.3% to 6.14 million tonnes, but Brazil's production rose again 3.5% to 2.78 million tonnes.

Production in the CIS increased by 4.7% to 8.39 million tonnes, while production in Russia was estimated to have increased by 4.3% to 6.05 million tonnes, and in Ukraine - by 5.9% to 1.65 million tons.

Nevertheless, global steel production in January-October still fell -2% to 1.51 billion tons.

For antitrust reasons, worldsteel no longer shows monthly capacity utilization. Power information can be found on the OECD website, worldsteel reports.