The World Steel Association (worldsteel) says that global crude steel output from its 67 reporting countries was 148.3 million tonnes in March 2018, up 4% year-on-year. Capacity utilisation also rose on-year again during the month.

China produced 74mt in the month, an increase of 4.5% on March 2017 and just about half of the world’s crude steel output.

In the EU28 total March crude steel production was practically static, rising by just 0.5% y-on-y to 15.1mt. Estimated output in Germany hardly moved y-on-y at 3.9mt. Monthly production grew y-on-y in Italy by 1.0% to 2.3mt. French crude steel output rose on-year in March by 1.5% to 1.4mt. Spanish output was down by -4.1% to 1.3mt.

US crude steel output was 7.3mt in March 2018, an on-year increase of 5.3% whilst in Brazil crude steel production was 3.1mt, up by 7.6% on March 2017.