Steel production in Europe increased slightly in August 2014

The World Steel Association reports that steel production in the EU-28 countries increased slightly during the month of August 2014. The year-on-year growth for the period was 0.4 percent.

The largest steel output in August was achieved by Germany. Germany produced 3.133 million tonnes of steel during this month, slightly lower than the country's output of 3.166 million tonnes in August 2013. The fall was 1.0 percent.

The lowest was steel production in Croatia. However, Croatia's total steel production rose 103.2 percent to 5,000 tonnes in August this year, up from 2,000 tonnes in August 2013. On an annualized basis, Croatia recorded the largest production growth.

In August 2014, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Finland, Hungary, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Slovakia and the United Kingdom also increased their steel production year on year. Slovenia recorded the largest decline in production over the period, falling 10.8 percent to 48,000 tons from 54,000 tons in August last year.

The total steel production in thousand tons in the first eight months of 2014 compared to the same period in 2013 reached in Austria (5254, +0), Belgium (4887, + 4.5%), Bulgaria (434, + 27%) , Croatia (132, + 51.6%), Czech Republic (3625, + 3.2%), Finland (2568, + 10.5%), France (10801, + 2.6%), Germany (29070, + 3.3%), Greece (643, -0.8%), Hungary (631, + 12.9%), Italy (16183, + 2.6%), Luxembourg (1475, + 105%), the Netherlands ( 4626, + 6%), Poland (5579, + 3.9%), Slovakia (3069, + 3.4%), Slovenia (421, + 2.7%), Spain (9607, + 2.1%) , Sweden (2973, + 3.4%), Great Britain (8245, + 6.8%), other EU countries (3255, -6%)