India and Iran shine in steel production
New Delhi: India remained the lone exception, apart from Iran, among top-10 major steel producing nations to log positive year-on-year (Y-o-Y) output growth in the first eleven months of the current year, data released by the World Steel Association (WSA) on Thursday showed.
Deriving data from 64 countries that produce 98 per cent of the world's steel, WSA said global production slipped 3.7 per cent Y-o-Y to 1,691.4 million tonnes (MT) in the current year till November.
Steel production in all major nations such as China, Japan, United States, Russia, South Korea, Germany, Turkey and Brazil were in the negative zone during the January-November 2022 compared with the same period last year. Iran, which currently stands at the 10th position in the world order of steel production, had a better 8.5 per cent growth in steel production than India's 6 per cent. India is now world's second largest steel producing nation after China.
During the 11-month period, production in China fell by 1.4 per cent, 6.9 per cent in Japan, 5.5 per cent in the US, 7 per cent in Russia, 6.1 per cent in South Korea, 7.9 per cent in Germany, 12.3 per cent in Turkey and 5.9 per cent in Brazil.
In November, apart from China and Iran, India recorded positive growth in steel production among top-10 major producing nations, but that did not stop global production at 139 MT to slip 2.6 per cent during the month. China produced 74.5 MT steel in November, up 7.3 per cent compared with the same month last year. At 10.4 MT, India's production was higher by 5.7 per cent than in November, 2021. Iran clocked 3.9 per cent growth in steel production in November.
The output hit the hardest in Europe where production declined by 25.1 per cent during the month followed by Russia, other CIS & Ukraine by 24.6 per cent in November. Production dipped 11.4 per cent in Africa, by 14.3 per cent in South America and by 6.3 per cent in North America. Asia, Oceania and the Middle East clocked positive growth in production during the month compared with the same month last year.
