According to the preliminary data released by the World Steel Association (worldsteel) on March 21, in February this year global crude steel output amounted to 116.57 million metric tons, increasing by 8.8 percent year on year and down by 8.22 percent compared to the January's revised output level. However, it should be noted that February has fewer working days as compared to January.
On the other hand, in the first two months of this year, world crude steel output came to 243.57 million metric tons, rising by 10.8 percent year on year.
In February this year, Asia produced 74.95 million metric tons of crude steel - up 9.6 percent, the EU's output amounted to 14.4 million metric tons - up 7.9 percent, North America produced nine million metric tons - up 3.9 percent, South America's production came to 3.73 million metric tons - up 14.3 percent, and the CIS's crude steel output totaled 8.46 million metric tons - up 6.5 percent, all compared to February 2010.
In February, the world crude steel capacity utilization rate of the 64 countries surveyed was 82 percent, slightly up from the revised 80.9 percent in January and up 2.7 percentage points from February 2010.
In February, China's crude steel production totaled 54.31 million metric tons, an increase of 9.7 percent, while Japan produced 8.93 million metric tons of crude steel, up 5.7 percent, both compared to the same month last year. South Korea showed an increase of 25.7 percent from February 2010, producing 5.01 million metric tons of crude steel in February this year. India, on the other hand, produced 5.1 million metric tons of crude steel in the given month, down 0.5 percent year on year.
In the EU, Germany's crude steel production for February was 3.67 million metric tons, with an increase of 7.9 percent compared to February 2010. In February this year, Spain produced 1.41 million metric tons of crude steel - up 6.4 percent, France's crude steel output was 1.19 million metric tons - up 5.6 percent, and Italy's crude steel production totaled 2.3 million metric tons - up 5.6 percent, all compared to the same month last year.
Turkey produced 2.46 million metric tons of crude steel in February this year, with a 35.5 percent increase over the same month in 2010, while Iran's crude steel output improved by five percent year on year, reaching 1.05 million metric tons.
In the given month, the US produced 6.6 million metric tons of crude steel, with an increase of 5.6 percent compared to February 2010.
Brazilian crude steel production stood at 2.72 million metric tons in February, 11.4 percent higher than in February 2010.
In the second month of 2011, Russia produced 5.2 million metric tons of crude steel, up 4.4 percent year on year, while Ukraine's crude steel production for the month was 2.64 million metric tons, 10.1 percent higher than the same month last year.
