Economy
August 27, 2017
China’s Still Driving Global Steel Production
Written by Peter Wright
In June and July, China registered its highest share of global steel production ever, according to World Steel Association data with analysis by Steel Market Update.
Global crude steel production in the month of July totaled 143,245,000 metric tons, up from 141,331,000 metric tons in June. Capacity utilization was 71.7 percent, down from 73.0 percent in June. Capacity utilization went down as production went up because there was one more day in July and tons per day production declined slightly in July. The three-month moving averages (3MMA) that we prefer to use were 142,584,000 metric tons and 72.1 percent, respectively. Capacity is 2.4 billion metric tons per year. Figure 1 shows monthly production and capacity utilization since January 2000.
