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Steel production
Steel is a core commodity in industrial societies. The OECD regularly monitors capacity, production, consumption, trade and employment in steel for its member countries as well as for all other major steel producing countries and areas.
The table omits production by minor steel producing countries (those with less than 2 million tonnes of production per year).
Definition
Steel production is here measured in tonnes of steel mill product equivalents. This is measured by crude steel production converted to ingot equivalent and then divided by a conversion factor (in most cases equal to 1.3) to account for losses between steel mill production and ingot production.
Comparability
The methodology and data sources are kept under continuous review by the OECD to ensure a high degree of comparability. However, the conversion from crude steel production to steel mill product equivalents uses standard conversion factors which, depending on the product mix, may not be accurate for all countries and at all periods. Small differences between countries may not be significant.
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Steel production in selected countries Million tonnes, product equivalent (Mtpe)
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Long-term trends Over the period shown, world steel production has grown at an average pace of 3.5% per year, more than two and a half times the rate of growth achieved by the OECD countries. Experience within the OECD has been mixed with falling production in the United Kingdom and Luxembourg, and strong growth in Korea, Mexico, Turkey and, from a low base, in Austria and Finland. Among the non-OECD countries, steel production in China has been growing at an average of slightly more than 12% per year, more than 6% in India and over 3% in Brazil. In the Russian Federation, growth since 1993 has averaged only around 1% per annum, though production levels have been recovering well in the latter half of the period. By the end of the period, China had extended its position as the world’s largest steel producer. Its production in 2005 of 290 million tonnes was almost three times that of the second largest producing country, Japan. The next largest producers were the United States, Russian Federation, and Korea. |
Source
- OECD (2006), Iron and Steel Industry in 2004: 2006 Edition, OECD, Paris.
Further information
Statistical publications
- OECD (2005), Developments in Steelmaking Capacity of Non-OECD Economies, 2003 Edition, OECD, Paris.
| Texts | |
| • | Indicator web page |
| • | Indicator in PDF |
| Tables (xls) | |
| • | Steel production |
| Graphics | |
| • | World steel production |
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