More good news with the recovery in the world steel industry still on track and perhaps accelerating a touch last month due to rising production levels in some non-Chinese producers.
Output in the 66 major steel producer members of the World Steel Association rose nearly four million tonnes (mt) (just under 4%) to just over 112 million tonnes.
Total crude steel production in the 66 reporting countries for the first ten months of 2009 was 982 mt down 13.5% from the same period of 2008.
The rise means that China’s share eased for another month from the near 50% level of several months ago, indicating that demand for steel is rising elsewhere.
Driving the improvement in some countries such as Japan, Germany, South Korea and Germany, has been the impact of car scrappage schemes or tax rebates to help support the new car industry.
Demand for steel is rising (and helping support spot iron ore prices around $US100 a tonne, well above the 2009-10 contract prices with Chinese and Asian steel mills).
On top of this, what also seems to be happening is that the strong demand for steel in China is sucking in imports from nearby Asian producers in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.
These imports are either in the form of metal (slabs etc) or in cars shipped from South Korea and Japanese car plants to feed China’s 70%-plus jump in sales so far this year.
Chinese production was 42% up on the level of October, 2008, but global output remains 13% lower than it was a year ago.
But that was better than a month or two ago when it was down 18% and more than 20%.
Australian crude steel output is estimated to have risen to 620,000 tonnes in October, up from 608,000 in September and almost level with the 624,000 tonnes produced in October of last year.
Globally the October total represented the second straight monthly gain since September 2008.
Output was up 1% to 108.8 million tonnes in September, according to the association, which covers steel production in 66 countries.
The rebound in September is mainly attributable to China, the world’s leading producer.
Chinese production in October was up 42.4% from the same month last year at 51.7 million tonnes.
Elsewhere in Asia, Japan produced 8.8 mt of crude steel in October 2009, down by 12.9% compared to the same month last year, but up by nearly half a million tonnes from September.
South Korean production was down a mere 0.7% in October from a year ago, producing 4.6 mt of crude steel in October 2009. Output was up 170,000 tonnes from September.
In the EU, Germany’s crude steel production was 3.5 mt in October 2009, down 11% from October 2008, but up 8% or so from September.
Italy produced 2.2 mt in October 2009, down 15.8% from October 2008, but up by well over 10% from September as the car scrappage scheme in that country boosted sales of new vehicles.
Russian crude steel production for October 2009 was 5.6 mt, up increase of 24.2% from October 2008. Ukraine produced 2.7 mt in October 2009, 42.9% higher than the same month last year.
Turkey produced 2.3 mt of crude steel in October 2009, up 25.5% increase from October 2008.
Russian production was up from September; Ukraine’s fell. Turkey also lifted steel output in October from September.
In the US steel production totalled an estimated 5.9 million tonnes last month, down 12.4% from the 6.8 million tonnes a year earlier but up 2.5% from 5.8 million tonnes in September.
The cash for clunkers scheme has had a positive impact on demand for steel (and new cars as makers rebuild stocks).
For the first 10 months of this year, US production of 46.6 million tonnes was down a still massive 43.7% from 82.7 million tonnes in the same period of 2008.
World crude steel capacity utilisation has been steadily improving since its lowest point in December 2008.
In October 2009, the world total capacity utilisation ratio was 76.0%, 17.8 percentage points higher than December 2008.
