According to data published today by worldsteel, world crude steel production reached 112MT for the first time since August of 2008. The October figure is a 3.1% improvement on September’s output and 13% better than October production last year when the industry was beginning its sharp decline.
China’s month-to-month growth of about 2% was exceeded by growth outside China of about 4%. Developed economies showed a 5% monthly improvement while developing economies outside China improved only 1%. As we near the end of the year, barring some dramatic change in the industry’s progress, it looks like we’ll see a roughly 10% year-on-year drop in world output in 2009 flattered by an 11% increase in Chinese production. The data are in the Nerds spreadsheet below.