World Crude Steel Output Ended 2020 on a Strong Note

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): The world crude steel production continued to surge in December 2020. The monthly production statistics published by the World Steel Association (worldsteel) points to 5.8% surge in output when compared with the same month a year before. The Dec ’20 output by 64 countries reporting to the Association totalled 160.858 million tonnes (Mt), as compared with the output of 151.969 Mt in December 2019.

The production by Asian region reported 6.0% jump in December 2020, mainly driven by 7.7% year-on-year increase in Chinese output. The Middle East crude steel output recorded 2.8% jump in output, despite notable decline witnessed in the UAE, Saudi and Qatar. African crude steel production surged 45.5% over the previous year. The U.S. production dropped significantly by 11.8%, which in turn resulted in 7.1% dip in production by the North American region.

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Meantime, South American output reported notable increase by 16.3% year-on-year. The CIS and EU-28 regions too witnessed surge in output by 3.1% and 10.2% respectively. Also, the Other Europe region recorded 15.3% jump in output. The production by Oceania region posted 5.2% surge when compared with December 2019.

The combined global steel output totalled 1.829 billion tonnes during the entire year 2020, down marginally by 0.9% when matched with the prior year. The production had totalled 1.846 billion tonnes in 2019.