Global steel production declines for the eighth month in a row, down 2% in April
Global steel production continued to slow in April, declining by 1.9% year-on-year, the World Steel Manufacturers Association reported on May 22. The data covers 69 participating countries.
About 153.4 million metric tons of crude steel were produced in April. This is 3 million tons less than in the same month last year, and 7.2 million tons, or 4.5% less than in March. China, with its 86 million tons, accounted for just over 55% of this total.
According to World Steel data, monthly global production has been declining year-on-year for the eighth consecutive month since September 2025.
Growth in most of the ten largest steel-producing countries failed to offset declines in several major steel-producing countries. Production in India increased by 3.9% year-on-year, or by more than 500,000 tons. In the USA, South Korea, Turkey and Germany, there was also a significant increase in production - by almost 1.5 million tons. However, this was not enough to offset a drop in production of 2.4 million tons in China, 700,000 tons in Russia and 1.4 million tons in the Middle East.
The results for the 10 largest steelmaking countries in January-April showed extremely uneven changes, ranging from a fall of 12% to an increase of 9.4%.
Global production in January-April decreased by 2%, or 12.5 million tons, year-on-year to 613.3 million tons, mainly due to a decrease in production in China by 4.1% and an estimated 12% in Russia. Over the four-month period, China reduced production by 14.1 million tons to 331.1 million tons, while Russia reduced production by 2.8 million tons to 20.6 million tons.
The decrease was partially offset by a 9.4%, or 5 million tons, increase in production in India and a 6.6%, or 1.7 million tons increase in the United States. In January-April, India produced 58.7 million tons of crude steel, while the United States produced 28 million tons, making them the second and third largest steel producing countries after China.
During this period, there was also a single-digit increase in production in Turkey and Germany, with these countries producing almost at the same level, 13 million tons and 12.5 million tons, respectively. However, total production in the 27 EU countries decreased by 2.2% to 42.8 million tons.
By region, the 12.8% drop in production in the Middle East, which decreased to 16 million tons, was the largest decrease in January-April, while the largest percentage increase occurred in Africa, where production increased by 8.7% year-on-year to 8.4 million tons.
Author: Katya Bukli