Steel production in Europe declined

The EU-28 countries recorded a slight decrease in crude steel production in July 2019 compared to the previous year. Since the beginning of the year, production has also seen a decline over the course of the month.

According to recent production statistics published by the World Steel Association (worldsteel), European crude steel production in July 1919 was 13.641 million tonnes, slightly lower than the 13.673 million tonnes produced in the same month a year earlier.

Germany topped regional crude steel production with 3.360 million tonnes of production, accounting for nearly one quarter of total regional production. However, production in the country declined slightly by 1% from a year earlier. The second largest producer was Italy, whose production fell from 2.156 million tons in July last year to 2.130 million tons in July 19. In third place was France with a production volume of 1.330 million tons.

The aggregate production in the aforementioned three countries amounted to 6.82 million tons, which is almost 50% of the total regional production in July this year.

Other key producers were Spain (1,100 million tonnes), Poland (780,000 tonnes), Belgium (660,000 tonnes) and the United Kingdom (645,000 tonnes).

Steel production in January-July 2019 by European countries amounted to 98.186 million tons, down 2.4% compared to production of 100.606 million tons in the same seven-month period in 2018. Germany (24.077 million tons) was included in the top three in terms of production. Italy (14.69 million tons) and France (9.006 million tons).