World crude steel production was down a little over 3% in July after similar falls in May and June. I’m afraid we’re only likely to know what this means as the full context of 2010 develops unless someone wants to share what they think it all means now. I’m withholding judgment. It was a general decline with no region significantly deviating from the overall trend including China.
worldsteel, which published the data, estimates that global crude steel capacity utilization was just over 75% in July down from 80% in June. That means crude steel production capacity is nudging 1.8Bn tonnes. All the data is below.