According to the preliminary data released by the World Steel Association (worldsteel) on December 20, in November this year global crude steel output amounted to 114 million metric tons, increasing by 5.1 percent year on year and down by 2.9 percent compared to the revised October 2010 output level.
In November this year, the crude steel outputs of Asia, EU, North America, South America, and CIS was 71.24 million mt, 14.69 million mt, 9 million mt, 3.63 million mt and 9.02 million mt respectively. Accordingly, the crude steel outputs of Asia, EU, North America and CIS increased 4.6 percent, 4.1 percent, 10.5 percent and 3.3 percent respectively, while South America's output dropped 3.3 percent - all on year-on-year basis.
Meanwhile, in the January-November period of 2010, world crude steel output rose by 16.2 percent year on year to 1.28 billion metric tons.
In November, the world crude steel capacity utilization rate of the 66 countries surveyed fell to 75.2 percent, down from 75.3 percent in October this year. Compared to November 2009, the utilization ratio in November 2010 slipped by 0.8 percentage points.
In November, China's crude steel production totaled 50.2 million metric tons, an increase of 4.8 percent, while Japan produced 9 million metric tons of crude steel, up 1.4 percent, both compared to the same month last year. South Korea showed an increase of 16.4 percent from November 2009, producing 5.2 million metric tons of crude steel in November this year. India, on the other hand, produced 5.66 million metric tons of crude steel in the given month, up 3.2 percent year on year.
In the EU, Germany's crude steel production for November 2010 was 3.8 million mt, an increase of eight percent on November 2009. Italy produced 2.3 million mt, 19.3 percent more than the same month in 2009. Spain produced 1.2 million mt, a 19.8 percent decrease compared to November 2009.
Turkey produced 2.5 million mt of crude steel in November 2010, an increase of 15.7 percent compared to the same month of last year.
The US produced 6.5 million mt of crude steel in November 2010, 13 percent higher on year-on-year basis. Brazil produced 2.6 milion mt of crude steel in November this year, a 2.8 percent decrease over the same month last year.
In the 11th month of 2010, Russia produced 5.54 million metric tons of crude steel, up 2.7 percent year on year, while Ukraine's crude steel production for the month was 2.85 million metric tons, 6.8 percent lower than the same month last year.