Besides bringing back some cheer to the sector, the latest report by industry monitoring body World Steel Association (WSA) on crude steel production reveals an interesting story.
World crude steel production soared in October, thanks to higher output in China, the U.S., India and Japan.
While production in the U.S. zoomed by 12% year-over-year in October, China manufactured 72.4 million tons (MT) in the same month, a 6.1% year-over-year increase and 10 times more than the U.S. did that month.
India, on the other hand, produced 8.6 MT of crude steel in October, up by 5.3% to 8.6 MT.
Clearly, the October cheer is positive news, in the sense that the steel sector is making a comeback. The WSA tracks steelmakers in 66 countries globally, representing about 85% of total steel production, and has said in this report that world steel production increased 5.9% year-over-year to 145.3 MT in October.
The China steel story, incidentally, produced nearly half of the world’s steel in October, which indicates a revival of sorts in the growth story there, too.
According to Moneycontrol.com, the downside was reported from Japan, the world’s second largest crude steel producing country. It registered a 1% contraction in output at 8.971 MT in October 2017, compared to 9.060 MT during the same month last year.
During the first 10 months of 2017, Japan’s steel output dropped from 87.442 MT to 87.239 MT, a 0.2% dip compared to the same period last year.
There’s a keen tussle on between the four steel giants (the U.S., China, Japan and India), with the latter already the world leader in stainless steel production and the third largest crude steel producer.
For example, India had overtaken Japan to become the second-largest steel producer in the world after China in 2016, according to the International Stainless Steel Forum. The country’s stainless steel production had gone up to 3.32 MT for 2016, approximately 9% more than the 3.0 MT achieved in 2015.
The WSA report also noted that the crude steel capacity utilization ratio of the 66 countries in October 2017 was 73.0%. This was 3.0% higher than October 2016, but as compared to the previous month, it was 0.6% lower.
Over 2017, crude steel production grew by 5.9%, which was a slightly higher pace on the 5.8% pace reported in its previous report.
Propelled by investments of $1 trillion USD in infrastructure sector, the Indian steel story is expected to hit the target of 200 MT by 2020.
Production in the European Union, according to the WSA report, went up to 14.75 MT, up from 13.81 MT in September.
by Sohrab Darabshaw