China Baowu Group (115.29 million tons) and ArcelorMittal (78.46 million) led the ranking of the world’s largest steel producing companies in 2020, according to the World Steel Association (Worldsteel).
Then they were located: HBIS Group (43.76 million), Shagang Group (41.59 million), Nippon Steel Corporation (41.58 million), POSCO (40.58 million), Ansteel Group (38.19 million), Jianlong Group (36.47 million) Shougang Group (34.00 million) and Shandong Steel Group (31.11 million).
In 2020, global steel production declined about 0.9% year-on-year, the first decline since 2015, as a result of the disruption in demand caused by the global Covid-19 pandemic.
Despite the initial shock, according to the Arcelor Mittal company, the strong recovery in demand in China throughout 2020, driven by spending on infrastructure, led to a 5.9% increase in steel production in 2020.
On the other hand, production decreased in all developed markets in 2020 compared to 2019, particularly in the United States (-17%), Japan (-16%) and the European Union-28 (-12%), as well as the most of the major emerging markets such as India (-11%) and South America (-8.6 percent).
Turkey was the main exception with a production growth of 5.5% and the CIS to a lesser extent with a production increase of 1.4% compared to 2019.
As a result, China increased its share of world steel production to 58% (2019: 54%). while the share of others decreased, including East Asia (9 out of 11%), EU-28 (8 out of 9%), North America (5 out of 6%), India (5 out of 6%), except CIS whose share it was generally stable at around 5 percent.
Steel producing companies
The Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown policy to control infections caused steel production in almost all major markets to fall in 2020, except in countries such as Turkey and Vietnam, where the strong recovery in demand to 2020 has supported steel production.
In Europe, steel production decreased by approximately 19 million tonnes, to 139 million tonnes in 2020.
Above all, steel production declined during the second quarter of the year (-26% year-on-year), due to generalized closures since mid-March and in May.
Then the easing of restrictions caused a recovery in real demand and, subsequently, a rebound in steel production in the second half of 2020 (-5% year-on-year).
Other notable steel producing companies were: Delong Steel Group, Tata Steel Group, Valin Group, JFE Steel, Nucor Corporation, Hyundai Steel, Fangda Steel, IMIDRO, Benxi Steel and Liuzhou Steel.
