Steel Products Prices North America
February 25, 2015
Global Steel Production and Capacity Utilization in January 2015
Written by Peter Wright
Global steel production in 2014 totaled 1.627 billion tonnes with a capacity of 2.2 billion tonnes which yields an average utilization for the year of 74 percent. China accounted for 51 percent of global production in 2014. Asia as a whole, including India, accounted for almost 70 percent of global production. Production in January on a tons per day basis was 4.294 million tonnes and has been declining for seven months since June. Total January production was 133.1 million tonnes.
If we look at the three month moving average and plot it over time we see that there has been a significant decline in the second half of the year since and including 2010 which sometimes extends into January and February (Figure 1).
