Not a single major steel producing nation reported positive production growth in November, World Steel Association (WSA) data showed, bringing into light the current state of affairs of the industry.
India, which was so far showing the only glimmer of hope in the current year, has also had a 0.2% fall in production at 7.14 MT during the month in which the world’s average output also dipped by a whopping 4.1% to stand at 126.82 MT compared with 132.22 MT during the same month a year earlier.
China, Japan, the US, India, South Korea and Russia are the world’s leading producers of steel. Production in China, which is on the wane for some months now, has declined by 1.6% to stand at 63.32 MT. In Japan, it fell by 4.7% to 8.74 MT and in the US, the fall is even higher by 15.6% to stand at 6.08 MT.
Reported production decline by 0.5% and 3.1%, respectively. South Korea produced 5.89 MT steel during the month while in Russia, the output was 5.71 MT, the WSA data revealed.
For the 11-month period of the current year to November, India, however, remained the only exception to produce more steel than in the same period last year. India’s production grew by 2.8% to 82 MT compared to 79.8 MT during the January-November period of the last year.
China’s production fell by 2.2% to 738.38 MT. Japan produced around 5 MT less steel at 96.5 MT during the period compared with a year earlier. The US reported a stiffer decline in production at 73.13 MT, a drop of 9.7% over the corresponding period last year.