World Steel Association: April global crude steel production drops 13%
Global crude steel production in April fell 13% compared to April 2019 production, the World Steel Association recently reported.
Global steel production totaled 137.1 million tons in April, according to the World Steel Association.
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China’s production reached 85.0 million tons of crude steel, a slight increase of 0.2% year over year. The slight increase comes after China posted a 1.7% year-over-year decline in March.
However, production in the other major Asian steel-producing nations declined significantly.
India produced 3.1 million tons of crude steel, marking a 65.2% year-over-year decline. Japan’s production plunged 23.5% year over year to 6.6 million tons.
E.U. production reached an estimated 10.7 million tons in April, marking a 22.9% year-over-year decline.
The U.S. produced 5.0 million tons, down 32.5% compared to April 2019.
According to recent reporting from the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), adjusted year-to-date production through May 23 totaled 33.2 million net tons — marking a 14.7% decline from the same period last year — at a capacity utilization rate of 70.3%. Production during the equivalent period in 2019 totaled 39.0 million net tons at a capacity utilization rate of 81.4%.
Meanwhile, for the week ending May 23, 2020, U.S. production totaled 1.2 million net tons at a capacity utilization rate of 53.2%, down 36.6% from the same week in 2019 (when the capacity utilization rate reached 80.8%). However, production for the week ending May 23, 2020, marked a 0.8% increase from the previous week, when the capacity utilization rate stood at 52.7%.
Elsewhere, production in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) — which includes Russia — was estimated to be 6.6 million tons in April 2020, down 22.6% year over year. Production in Ukraine fell 30.9% year over year to 1.4 million tons.
Brazil, which saw a sharp rise in confirmed coronavirus cases last month — bringing the country to No. 2 on the list of most confirmed infections in the world, totaling more than 465,000 cases as of Sunday, according to the World Health Organization — produced 1.8 million tons of crude steel in April 2020, marking a 39.0% year-over-year decline.
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Turkey’s crude steel production totaled 2.2 million tons in April, down by 26.3% compared to April 2019 production.
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