Top 10 Steel Producing Countries
World produced around 1870 million metric tonnes of steel in 2019. China is the leader producing more than 50% of the steel. In 2019, world steel production increased by around 3.4% compared to in 2018. In this article, we will compare data of top 10 steel producing countries.
Crude Steel Production
As mentioned above, China has the highest crude steel production followed by India, Japan and United States respectively. Last 3 years data of top 10 countries by crude steel production is shown below. Values are provided in million metric tonnes annually.
| Country | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 |
|---|---|---|---|
| China | 996.3 | 920 | 831.7 |
| India | 111.2 | 109.3 | 101.5 |
| Japan | 99.3 | 104.3 | 104.7 |
| United States | 87.9 | 86.6 | 81.6 |
| Russia | 71.6 | 72 | 71.3 |
| South Korea | 71.4 | 72.5 | 71.1 |
| Germany | 39.7 | 42.4 | 43.6 |
| Turkey | 33.7 | 37.3 | 37.5 |
| Brazil | 32.2 | 35.4 | 34.4 |
| Iran | 31.9 | 24.5 | 21.8 |
Important Facts
- 71.9% of crude steel production is done using oxygen steelmaking process, 27.7% with electric steelmaking, remaining .3% with open-hearth.
- Most of the crude steel is continuously casted rather than using the conventional ingot casting route.
- Average steel use per person in 2019 is 229.3 Kilograms, an increase of 2.4% from last year.
- Per capita South Korea uses 1039 Kg, China 632.9 Kg, Japan 498.1 Kg, Germany 417.9 Kg, Turkey 313.4 Kg, United States 296.8 Kg and India 74.3 Kg.
- China, Japan and South Korea are the major exporters of steel.
- European Union, United States and Germany are the major importers of steel.