World’s Topmost Producers of Crude Steel in January

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): The crude steel output by 64 world countries reporting to the World Steel Association (worldsteel) edged higher marginally during the first month of the current year, despite reduced output from China-the world’s largest crude steel producer. It must be noted that the above 64 countries had accounted for 99% of the world crude steel production in 2017.

According to monthly production data released by the world steel trade body, the production has totaled 139.439 million tonnes (Mt) in January 2018. This is higher by 0.8% when compared with the year before. The crude steel output by world countries had totaled 138.268 Mt in Januaar last year.

China accounted for over 48% of the world production in Jan ‘18. However, the Chinese output declined marginally by 0.9% during the month. Also, India made significant progress in production and is now tipped to topple Japan to become the world’s second largest producing nation after China.

The table below provides the details about leading crude steel producers during the month of January this year.

Note: The above outputs are in thousand tonnes.

DRI Output

The world direct reduced iron (DRI) production in January 2018 totaled 6.475 million metric tons (Mt).

The top DRI producer during the month was India with estimated output of 2.154 Mt. Iran’s output totaled 2.060 Mt. The Mexican DRI output amounted to 450,000 metric tons. The outputs (in tons) by the other nine countries during the month are: Canada (141,000), Argentina (141,000), Venezuela (20,000), Egypt (415,000), Libya (79,000), South Africa (86,000), Qatar (227,000), Saudi Arabia (368,000) and United Arab Emirates (334,000).

The World Steel production figures are based on the figures collected from 12 countries, which accounted for nearly 85% of the global DRI production in 2016.

RELATED: Europe's Crude Steel Output Recorded Notable Surge in 2017