Europe's Crude Steel Production Witnessed Substantial Drag

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): The EU-28 countries reported sharp decline in crude steel production during the previous year. This is at a time when global crude steel output managed to surge higher by 3.4%.

The recent production statistics published by the World Steel Association (worldsteel) indicates that the European output totalled 159.430 million tonnes (Mt) in 2019, recording substantial decline by 4.9% from the prior year. The regional production had totalled 167.655 Mt in 2018.

Germany-the largest producer in the region saw its output drop sharply over the previous year by almost 6.5% from 42.435 Mt to 39.675 Mt. The steel output by Italy, at 23.245 Mt, was down significantly by approximately 5.2%. The country had produced 24.532 Mt of crude steel in 2018. Meantime, the French output plunged by more than 6% from 15.387 Mt to 14.451 Mt.

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Austria and Sweden were the only countries to report production jump during the previous year. The output by these countries was up by 7.8% and 1.4% respectively. On the contrary, Croatia and Finland recorded largest decline in output, registering year-on-year declines by 52.1% and 16.2% respectively.

The regional monthly production during December 2019 also recorded a decline by 11.6%, falling from 12.847 Mt to 11.357 Mt. The top three producing countries were Germany (2.850 Mt), Italy (1.413 Mt) and France (918,000 tonnes).