Global Steel Production Hits Record High in March

Global steel production was at an all-time high in March and declined only slightly in April. Production declined by 0.07 percent in April month over month and grew by 4.0 percent in three months through April year over year, according to the latest Steel Market Update analysis of World Steel Association data. China grew by 5.2 percent. Excluding China, the growth for world steel production was 2.8 percent. In 2018, China is increasing its share of global steel production, which now stands at an all-time high of 51.7 percent.

In 2017, total global steel production hit 1.645 billion metric tons, up by 5.0 percent from 2016. Production in the month of April 2018 totaled 148,322,000 metric tons, down from 148,422,000 in the month of March. Capacity utilization in April was 75.0 percent. The three-month moving averages (3MMA) that we prefer to use were 142,963,000 metric tons and 74.1 percent, respectively. Figure 1 shows monthly production and capacity utilization since January 2000. The summer slowdown that occurred in each of the seven years 2010 through 2016 was delayed until November last year. On a tons-per-day basis, production in April was 4.944 million metric tons with a 3MMA of 4.817 million metric tons. This was an all-time high on both counts. 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 2.4 billion tons.