In April the global capacity utilisation rate at crude steel mills reached almost 77%. That represents a four-year high, thanks to continuing recovery in output driven by China and followed by the majority of the top steelmaking countries, according to the latest data from the World Steel Association (worldsteel). In 2013 global capacity utilisation had surpassed 80% during some months, but since mid-2014 the rate had tracked below 76%.

The indicator had reached a baseline of 64.9% at the end of 2015 but since then the recovery has been consistent. April’s level confirms that the market is continuing to improve its performance, with the capacity utilisation rate increasing by over 2 percentage points compared with April 2017.

Overall global crude steel output from the 64 worldsteel reporting countries was 148.3 million tonnes in April 2018, up 4.1% year-on-year. China produced 76.7mt in the month, an increase of 4.8% on April 2017 and now once again more than half of the world’s crude steel output.