Sudden Drop in Global Steel Output

Global steel output fell to 152.8 million metric tons in July, down -5.6% from June and -4.7% from July 2023 – apparently as a result of a significant cut in Chinese steel production.

The latest monthly total reported by the World Steel Assn. brings 2024’s cumulative production volume to 1.1 billion metric tons, essentially even (-0.7%) with the comparable total for January-July 2023.

The World Steel monthly report compiles raw-steel production totals for 71 countries. The same group reports on patterns in steel consumption – and currently forecasts that 2024 global consumption will rise just +1.7% to 1.793 billion metric tons over 2023, about 19 million metric tons less the outlook report issued late last year.

Weak demand from manufacturing and construction sectors has constrained steel output for the past two years – particularly in China, the world’s largest steel producer and steel consumer.

As a result, Chinese producers have apparently increased their efforts at exporting steel, and that has resulted in dumping charges against China from India, Thailand, and other regional competitors.

More recent reports have indicated China’s regulators have imposed new limits to prevent overproduction, a task that central planners have assigned themselves for more than a decade with no apparent success.

The July totals for Chinese steel indicate some movement toward scaling down production volumes, as the industry produced 82.9 million metric tons for the month, -10.5% less than in June and -9.0% less than in July 2023.

Through seven months of 2024 China’s steelmakers have produced 613.7 million metric tons of raw steel, -2.2% less than in the first seven months of 2023. Indian steelmakers have countered the global trends across the past two years, but in July the production total remained even with June at 12.3 million metric tons.

That figure is 6.8% higher than the July 2023 result, and it brings India’s YTD raw steel output to 86.4 million metric tons, 7.2% higher than during January-July 2023. In Japan raw-steel output ticked up 1.4% from June to 7.1 million metric tons in July, and that total is 6.8% higher than last July’s result.

For the year to-date, Japanese steelmakers have produced 49.8 million metric tons of raw steel, -2.8% less than last year. U.S. raw-steel production during July totaled 6.9 million metric tons (7.6 million short tons), 2.9% more than June and -3.8% less than July 2023.

Through seven months in 2024, U.S. raw-steel production is at 46.9 million metric tons ( 51.7 million short tons), -1.8% less than during the comparable period of 2023. Russian steelmakers produced 6.3 million metric tons during July, up 4.76% from June but -3.1% less than July 2023. Their YTD total is 43.1 million metric tons, down -3.0% from January-July 2023.

The World Steel Assn.’s monthly summary reports the totals for carbon steel produced in basic-oxygen or electric arc furnaces and cast into semi-finished forms like billets for bar and rod products; slabs for flat products; or blooms, for beam and pipe products. Specialty and stainless steel volumes are not included.