World crude steel production fell 3.0 percent year on year to 150.6 million tonnes in August 2022, the World Steel Association reported on 22 September. It was the eighth consecutive monthly year-on-year decline, a run stretching back to January. August brought a new disruption in China, where a record heatwave forced power rationing in Sichuan and shut steel mills across the southwest, adding to the output cuts mills had already made because of losses. The figures covered the 64 countries reporting to the association, about 98 percent of world output. In Europe, high gas and electricity prices were pushing mills towards idling furnaces, a step ArcelorMittal would announce within days. August's smaller decline, compared with July's 6.5 percent fall, owed more to a weak comparison base than to any recovery in demand.
Source: World Steel Association — https://worldsteel.org/media/press-releases/2022/
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