World crude steel production was the second lowest monthly total so far this year, despite continuing solid production in China and most of Asia.
Continuing weakness in Europe helped push monthly production to 124.589 million metric tonnes (mmt) against 127.511 million in July.
That was a month on month fall of 2.2%, according to the report from the World Steel Association .
Only the 118.1 million tonnes produced in February was lower, and that was mostly due to the impact of holidays in China and several other Asian producing countries.
But August’s figure was still almost 10% above the level of August 2010, thanks mostly to the fact that despite the recent slowdown in China, crude steel production there remains well above 2010 levels.
All regions showed a rise in crude steel production in both the month and year to date apart from Africa from the same period of 2010.
Output in other countries, such as Japan hasn’t improved by anywhere near as much as in China and South Korea.
That is put down to the lingering effects of the March earthquake and tsunami, although Japanese car production rose in August for the first time since March.
And, although some European countries reported a sharp improvement (such as Italy and France, even though the figures are small) from 2010, crude steel production in the 27 member countries of the EU fell in August, down 22% on the 2011 peak in May.
The World Steel figures show that 12.74 mmt of crude steel were produced in the EU in August, down from the 14.976 million in July and a very large 23% lower the 2011 peak of 16.3335 mmt in May.
In fact August production was just over half a million tonnes more than August of 2010 and was the lowest level of output this year.
But there seems to be a seasonal factor (August is a time of holidays in many European countries) and production bottoms for the year in the month, according to previous data.
The question now is how far it recovers this month and in October, especially with the financial and market instability since early August over Greece, Italy and Spain.
China’s crude steel production for August 2011 was 58.8 mmt, an increase of 13.8% compared to August 2010.
The world crude steel capacity utilisation ratio of the 64 countries in August 2011 was 77.5%, 2.1 percentage points lower than in July 2011.
The World Steel Association said that compared to August 2010, the utilisation ratio in August 2011 increased by 3.5 percentage points.
Elsewhere in Asia, Japan produced 8.9 mmt of crude steel in August 2011, a slight increase of 0.1% compared to the same month last year.
South Korea’s crude steel production for August 2011 was 5.5 mmt, up 19.3% compared to August 2010.
In the EU, Germany’s crude steel production for August 2011 was 3.6 mmt, an increase of 5.3% on August 2010. Italy produced 1.4 mmt of crude steel in August 2011, 25.6% higher than August 2010. Spain’s crude steel production for August 2011 was 1.1 mmt, down 7.6% on August 2010. France produced 1.0 mmt of crude steel in August 2011, an increase of 19.7% compared to August 2010.
Turkey produced 2.8 mmt of crude steel in August 2011, 7.8% higher than August 2010.
The US produced 7.5 mmt of crude steel in August 2011, an increase of 13.8% compared to August 2010.
Brazilian crude steel production for August 2011 was 3.0 mmt, 1.5% higher than August 2010.
Australian production rose to 525,000 tonnes in August, up from the low of 488,000 in July, but still well down on the 699,000 of August 2010.
In July, the world’s biggest steelmaker, ArcelorMittal said that it expects global apparent steel consumption to grow between 7% and 7.5% in 2011.
During the first eight months of this year, global crude steel production has risen 8.3% to 1.01 billion tonnes, compared with 933 million tonnes in the same period a year before.
Steel production levels (and demand for Australian iron ore and coal) remain dependent on China.
So far no sign of a hard landing, despite three or four months of sluggish activity on the main surveys of manufacturing activity.
According to reports in Chinese official media this week (such as Xinhua and China Daily), the country’s rulers remain confident about the performance of the economy for the rest of this year and into early 2012.
With the proviso that the events in Europe are a continuing unknown. A senior official planner said this week that China is expecting GDP growth to remain above 9%.
But the planner warned that the uncertain global conditions could see growth slowly easing to around 8% by 2016 (as called for under the new economic plan starting in 2012).
Lu Zhongyuan, deputy head of the Development Research Center of the State Council, said that while the economy expanded by 10.4% in 2010, the growth rate this year is likely "to be the fastest" among major world economies, although it may cool a little from previous highs.
"Economic fundamentals are still very strong in China, thanks to the booming demand of both investment and consumption," according to a report on Xinhua.
According to Lu, the slight slowdown in GDP growth results from the government’s economic tightening measures targeting the real estate sector and tight monetary policies.
"The economy is experiencing a short-term moderation and grow
