Steel production png Worldwide steel production on the rise (Nations table) …but Italy slips to eleventh place.
Global steel production ended 2018 with a significant growth of 4.6% and a volume of 1,808 billion tonnes on an annual basis, but if we consider December alone, the worldwide increase was 5.8%.
Italian steel
However, our “bel paese” is not well positioned and is clearly bucking the trend, with an increase of just 1.69% in annual volumes, from 24.068 million tonnes in 2017 to 24.475 million tonnes in 2018. In December alone, however, it lost 7.39% compared to the same month last year.
Basically, we have dropped out of the top 10 steel manufacturers worldwide, reaching 11th place on an annual basis and 13th place in December alone.
Iran, on the other hand, entered the “Top Ten”, with growth of almost 18% on an annual basis to reach 25 million tonnes of steel produced.
The “Big” of world production.
The undisputed queen continues to be China with 76 million tonnes in December 2018 (+ 8.2% compared to the same month in 2017) and 928 million on an annual basis for 2018 (+ 6.59 compared to 2017). India also increased its annual production by 4.93%, making it the second largest manufacturer in the world, while Japan fell by 0.3%, but still remained in third place in the Top Ten.
Steel production was disappointing for the United States, which certainly recorded a good increase (+6.2%) but perhaps not proportionate to the “war on tariffs” imposed by Donald Trump, with a volume of 86.698 million tonnes and a solid fourth position.
Vietnam (more than +23%), Egypt (+13.64%) and Argentina (+11.63%) jumped upwards, while Austrian volumes fell by 15.37%, probably due in part to major problems at a Voestalpine blast furnace which was shut down for weeks.
