Economy
March 1, 2019
Global Steel Production: China Still Leads the Way
Written by Peter Wright
Global steel production in January was at an annual rate of 1.760 billion metric tons (Mt). Capacity is calculated to be 2.4 billion Mt and capacity utilization in January was 74.0 percent, according to the latest Steel Market Update analysis of World Steel Association data. In three months through January, China grew by 7.8 percent year-over-year as the rest of the world contracted by 0.3 percent. In 2018, China increased its share of global steel production, which in January was at 51.1 percent.
Figure 1 shows annualized monthly production on a three-month moving average (3MMA) basis and capacity utilization since January 2000. May through October were the first months for the annualized production rate to exceed 1.8 billion Mt. Production annualized in January fell back to 1.76 billion Mt. On a tons-per-day basis, production in January was 4.732 million, down from an all-time high last June of 5.071 million Mt.
