The World Steel Association (worldsteel) says that global crude steel output was 133 million tonnes in January 2015, a -2.9% decrease compared to January 2014, Kallanish notes.

China produced 65.5mt in the month, a decrease of -4.75% on January 2014. This is still 49.2% of world output but the fall may be a signal that 2015 could see the first full year-on-year decrease in Chinese steel output for a long time.

In the EU28 total January crude steel production decreased by -1.1% y-on-y to 14.5mt. Output in Germany increased y-on-y by 0.5% to 3.7mt. Monthly production tumbled y-on-y in Italy by -11.3% to 1.9mt and also in France by -10.6% to reach 1.3mt. Spanish output sprang upwards however by 10.4% to 1.3mt.

US crude steel output was 7.4mt in January 2015, an increase of 0.4% compared to January 2014 whilst in Brazil crude steel production was 3.0mt, a rise of 7.7% y-on-y.

Crude steel production in Japan in January fell y-on-y by -4.0% to 9.0mt whilst that of South Korea was an estimated 5.8mt, down by -5.0% from January 2014. India's estimated production grew by 0.3% y-on-y during the month to reach 7.1mt.

Russian production rose by 6.0% y-on-y to 6.1mt in January 2015. Troubled Ukraine’s output again slumped dramatically to 1.9mt, down -25.2% y-on-y and is replaced in the world top ten by Taiwan which saw a 14.2% surge in January to 2.2mt.

The worldsteel monthly crude steel capacity utilisation ratio was 72.5% in January 2015.  This was -4.4 percentage points down from that in January 2014 and -0.4 percentage points lower than in December 2014, worldsteel says.