WSA: Global Steel Production Grows by 3.8 Percent

Global steel production grew by 3.8 percent in the three months through February. Excluding China, the pace of growth for world steel production was 3.2 percent, according to the latest Steel Market Update analysis of World Steel Association data.

In 2017, total global steel production hit 1.687 billion metric tons, up by 5.2 percent from 2016. Production in the month of February 2018 totaled 131,791,000 metric tons, down from 144,861,000 in January due to the reduced number of days in the month. Capacity utilization in February was 73.3 percent. The three-month moving averages (3MMA) that we prefer to use were 138,017,000 metric tons and 71.8 percent, respectively. Figure 1 shows monthly production and capacity utilization since February 2000. The summer slowdown that has occurred in each of the last seven years was delayed until November last year. On a tons-per-day basis, production in February was 4.707 million metric tons with a 3MMA of 4.604 million metric tons. The all-time 3MMA high was in June 2017 at 4.695 million metric tons. In three months through February, production was up by 3.8 percent year over year. Capacity utilization was on an erratically downward trajectory from mid-2011 through February 2016 when it bottomed out at 65.5 percent. In December 2016, the OECD’s steel committee estimated that global capacity would increase by almost 58 million metric tons per year between 2016 and 2018 bringing the total to 2.43 billion tons. That forecast is coming to pass as capacity is now 2.39 billion tons.