The on-year rise in global stainless production mainly reflected growth in demand, as worldstainless had predicted. The organization had forecast last October that global stainless steel consumption for full-year 2024 may increase by as much as 4% on year, and that the growth may continue through 2025 to sit at 3% on year.
Over last year's January-September period, stainless production in all the major countries and regions had increased by varying degrees, the data show. Moreover, the combined output of Brazil, Indonesia, Russia, South Africa, and South Korea grew by a sharp 11.2% during the nine months.
China, the world's largest stainless producer and consumer, produced 28.6 million tonnes of crude stainless steel during the first three quarters of last year, rising by 3.4% on year, according to the worldstainless release.
The country's apparent consumption of stainless steel also grew during the first nine months, with the total tonnage up by 297,800 tonnes or 1.3% on year at 23.6 million tonnes, according to data released by the Stainless Steel Council of China Iron and Steel Association.
However, growth in global stainless production slowed somewhat over January-September compared with the on-year rise of 6.3% during the January-June half, mainly due to the decrease in output during the July-September quarter, the worldstainless data showed.
During third quarter, the world's total crude stainless production came in at 15.65 million tonnes, slipping by 1.1% from the previous quarter, according to the association's statistics.
World's crude stainless steel output over Jan-Sept 2024
Countries & Regions | Jan-Sept ('000 t) | YoY (%) | Q3 ('000 t) | QoQ (%) |
Europe | 4,694 | 4.9% | 1,506 | -7.3% |
U.S. | 1,509 | 9.1% | 482 | -6.9% |
China | 28,631 | 3.4% | 9,863 | -2.8% |
Asia (excluding China, Indonesia, South Korea) | 5,393 | 8.1% | 1,776 | 0.0% |
Others (Brazil, Indonesia, Russia, South Africa, South Korea ) | 5,864 | 11.2% | 2,027 | 15.1% |
Total | 46,092 | 5.4% | 15,654 | -1.1% |
Source: worldstainless