China crude steel production in June was 60.2 million metric tonnes, 0.5% higher than the same month last year. Year-to-date Chinese crude production was 356.2 million tonnes, 1% higher than year-to-June 2011 output.
Looking at consecutive months, June’s production was 1.7% lower than May 2012’s, but due to the shorter June month, average daily production rose by 1.6%. In addition, China’s net exports in June were 4.12 million tonnes, 0.21 million tonnes higher than net exports in May.
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Since this story hasn’t got to the English newsfeeds yet, we thought we’d draw your attention to this front page Italian story. Just two days after steel journalists reported a planned September restart of its No. 1 hot strip mill, Ilva Taranto, one of the largest flat roll mills in Europe, is facing closure of its hot end by authorities due to ongoing pollution investigations. According to front-page accounts from the Italian newspapers La Repubblica and Corriere della Sera, authorities have signed documents to seal off the entire hot end of the mill including raw materials storage, coke batteries, agglomeration, blast furnaces, basic oxygen furnaces, and ferrous materials management. Eight managers are currently under investigation including top managers of the steel plant such as Emilio Riva, owner, and his son Nicola Riva, who was president of the plant until two weeks ago. Among other accusations, they are accused of various levels of intentional and involuntary environmental disaster. Taranto has 11.5 million metric tonnes of BOF capacity and produced 8.4 million tonnes of crude steel in 2011. It has 2 hot strip mills, the largest with about 5.5 million tonnes capacity, the smaller with 3 million tonnes capacity. Plant workers are protesting the planned mill suspension, blocking major roads with processions.
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Worldsteel published June’s global crude steel production on July 20th. World crude production was 127.9 million tonnes, a change of only 0.05% compared to June 2011 for the 62 countries reporting. Average daily production rose by 0.7% compared to May 2012.
China’s production dropped from May’s 61.2 to 60.2 million tonnes, which is an increase in average daily production of 1.6%, due to the shorter month of June. Japan and South Korea’s average daily production increased by 3.1% between May and June while the USA’s dropped by 5%.
As usual, all the data for June 2012 (and for a number of prior years) is generously shared in the Nerds spreadsheet below.
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