World crude steel production reached 169.2 million tonnes in March 2021, up 15.2 percent from a year earlier, the World Steel Association reported on 22 April. The sharp increase partly reflected the low base of March 2020, when the pandemic first shut down mills outside China, but output was also strong in absolute terms. Production in the first three months of 2021 totalled 486.9 million tonnes, up 10.0 percent year on year. China continued to dominate, while output in the United States, the European Union, India and Japan all rose strongly from the depressed levels of a year earlier. The 64 countries reporting to the association account for about 98 percent of world crude steel production. The March figures confirmed that the industry had moved past the worst of the pandemic slump and was running at close to full capacity in most regions, with raw material prices climbing as mills competed for iron ore and scrap.
Source: World Steel Association — https://worldsteel.org/wp-content/uploads/Press-release-–-March-2021-crude-steel-production.pdf
Photo: Wikimedia Commons (freely licensed).