India overtakes Japan, becomes world's second latest crude steel producer

NEW DELHI: World Steel Association (worldsteel) has said in its latest report that India has jumped ahead of Japan to become world's second largest steel producing country in the world. 

The report added that crude steel production of India in 2018 stood at 106.5 MT, an increase of 4.9 percent from 101.5 MT in 2017. On the other hand, Japan Japan produced 104.3 MT in 2018, down 0.3 percent compared to 2017.

China is still on top with its crude steel production in 2018 reaching 928.3 Mt, up by 6.6% on 2017.  According to the report, the crude steel output of China increased 6.6 percent to 928.3 million tonnes (MT) in 2018 from 870.9 MT in 2017. The share of China in global crude steel production jumped from 50.3 percent in 2017 to 51.3 percent in 2018.

Global crude steel production in 2018 stood at 1,808.6 MT from 1,729.8 MT in 2017, a jump of 4.6 percent, said the report.

The US was at the 4th position as it produced 86.7 MT of crude steel in 2018. The other nations in the Top 10 are South Korea (72.5 MT, 5th place), Russia (71.7 MT, 6th), Germany (42.4 MT, 7th), Turkey (37.3 MT, 8th), Brazil (34.7 MT, 9th) and Iran (25 MT, 10th).

The report showed that Italy produced 24.5 MT of crude steel in 2018, while France's output was 15.4 MT.

In 2018, annual crude steel production for South America was 44.3 Mt, which is 1.3% more than 2017. Brazil produced 34.7 Mt in 2018, a jump of 1.1% compared to 2017.