World crude steel production declined 0.1% in June to 128mt (million tonnes), compared with June 2011, the World Steel Association has said.
China’s production increased 0.6% to 60.2mt of crude steel, Japan improved 3.5% to 9.2mt, and South Korea rose 4.3% to 5.9mt compared with June 2011.
In the European Union, Germany’s production decreased 4% to 3.7mt of crude steel in June. Italy, France and Spain also produced less crude steel in June, compared with June 2011.
Turkey’s crude steel production rose 4% in June to 2.9mt.
US production rose 8% to 7.3mt of crude steel in June, compared to the year-earlier period.
Brazil, South America’s biggest steelmaker, produced 2.7mt last month, 8.5% less than in June 2011.
The world crude steel capacity utilization ratio for the 62 countries reporting to the World Steel Association was 80.4% in June, 2.5 percentage points lower than June 2011.
For the first six months of 2012, world crude steel production increased 0.9% to 766.9mt compared with the same period of 2011.
North America’s production increased 7.2% with the United States seeing an 8.4% increase over the first half of 2011. Asia’s crude steel production increased 1.6% with China improving 1.8% compared with the year-earlier period.
EU production dropped 4.6% and South America saw a 3.5% decline during the first half of 2012 compared with the same period in 2011.