SA steel output plummets

Johannesburg - Crude steel production in South Africa fell 22.1% year-on-year in May to an estimated 600 000 metric tons from 770 000 metric tons in May last year, the World Steel Association reported on Friday.

Releasing crude steel data for May, the association said production out of South Africa for the first five months of 2009 was down 25% to 2.8 million metric tons from 3.7 million metric tons in the first five months of 2008.

African production dropped 21% to 1.2 million metric tons in May and 22.8% to 5.9 million metric tons for the first five months of this year.

World crude steel production for the 66 countries reporting to the World Steel Association was 95.6 million metric tons in May - 21% lower than in May 2008.

World crude steel production for the first five months of 2009 was 449 million metric tons, a 22.4% decrease over the same period of 2008.

North America again recorded the largest year-on-year fall in production in May with its crude steel output falling 47.8% to 6.2 million metric tons with the US showing a 50.6% fall off in production.

The second largest drop was posted by Oceana, which represents production out of Australia and New Zealand, where output fell by 47.7% to 380 million metric tons in May.

In the European Union, crude steel production fell 44.8% year-on-year in May to 10.5 million metric tons.

Germany's crude steel was decrease 47.8%, Italy's production was down by 41.6%, Spain produced 41.3% less than the same month last year and France showed a decrease of 41.3% from May 2008.

Russia's crude steel production 31.2% while Ukraine's output was 40% lower.

Japan produced 6.5 million metric tons of crude steel in May 2009, down by 38.5% compared with the same month last year while South Korea showed a decrease of 11.8% from May 2008, producing 4.2 million metric tons of crude steel in May 2009.

But China's crude steel production for May 2009 was 46.5 million metric tons, 0.6% higher than May 2008.

- I-Net Bridge