According to the preliminary data released by the World Steel Association (worldsteel) on April 20, in March this year global crude steel output amounted to 123.34 million metric tons, increasing by seven percent year on year and up by 9.51 percent compared to the February's revised output level.
On the other hand, in the first quarter of this year, world crude steel output came to 371.52 million metric tons, rising by 8.8 percent year on year.
In the first quarter of this year, Asia produced 237.33 million metric tons of crude steel - up 9.1 percent, the EU's output amounted to 45.62 million metric tons - up 6.9 percent, North America produced 28.9 million metric tons - up six percent, South America's production came to 11.66 million metric tons - up 12.2 percent, and the CIS's crude steel output totaled 28.38 million metric tons - up 9.7 percent, all compared to Q1 2010.
In March, the world crude steel capacity utilization rate of the 64 countries surveyed was 81.9 percent, slightly down from the revised 83 percent in February and up 2.5 percentage points from March 2010.
In March, China's crude steel production totaled 59.4 million metric tons, an increase of nine percent, while Japan produced 9.09 million metric tons of crude steel, down 2.7 percent, both compared to the same month last year. South Korea showed an increase of 14.4 percent from March 2010, producing 5.76 million metric tons of crude steel in March this year. India, on the other hand, produced 6.35 million metric tons of crude steel in the given month, up 8.6 percent year on year.
In the EU, Germany's crude steel production for March was 4.03 million metric tons, with a slight increase of 0.1 percent compared to March 2010. In March this year, Spain produced 1.62 million metric tons of crude steel - up 0.3 percent, France's crude steel output was 1.43 million metric tons - down 3.4 percent, and Italy's crude steel production totaled 2.58 million metric tons - up 8.6 percent, all compared to the same month last year.
Turkey produced 2.73 million metric tons of crude steel in March this year, with a 24.9 percent increase over the same month in 2010, while Iran's crude steel output improved by 25.2 percent year on year, reaching 1.17 million metric tons.
In the given month, the US produced 7.1 million metric tons of crude steel, with a slight decrease of 0.2 percent compared to March 2010.
Brazilian crude steel production stood at 3.02 million metric tons in March, 6.8 percent higher than in March 2010.
In the third month of 2011, Russia produced 6.16 million metric tons of crude steel, up 7.4 percent year on year, while Ukraine's crude steel production for the month was 3.05 million metric tons, 0.2 percent lower than the same month last year.
