July 2 - China's insatiable appetite for steel has helped
the country's steelmakers overtake most of their Japanese and
Korean peers in the top five ranking producers of the world in
2008.
According to latest figures from the World Steel
Association, China's top steelmaker Baosteel (600019.SS) is now
the world's third biggest steelmaker, overtaking giants like
South Korea's POSCO (005490.KS) and Japan's JFE (5411.T).
ArcelorMittal (ISPA.AS) remains as the world's biggest
producer, with its closest follower Nippon Steel (5401.T)
producing a bit more than one third of Mittal's output.
Commodity powerhouse China strengthens its positon as the
world's top producing country, now accounting for nearly 40
percent of the total 1.33 billion tonnes in 2008.
Below are the world's top ten steel producing companies and
countries.
08/07 TOP 10 STEEL PRODUCERS 2008 2007
(million metric tonnes)
======================================================
Rank Company Production
1 1 ArcelorMittal 101.6 116.4
2 2 Nippon Steel 37.5 35.7
3 6 Baosteel Group 35.4 28.6
4 4 Hebei Steel Group 33.3 31.1
5 3 JFE 32.4 34.0
6 5 POSCO 31.7 31.1
7 11 Wuhan Steel Group 27.7 20.2
8 7 Tata Steel 24.4 26.5
9 8 Shandong Steel Group 23.8 23.8
10 10 U.S. Steel 23.2 21.5
-------------------------------------------------------
TOP 10 STEEL PRODUCING COUNTRIES
(million metric tonnes)
==========================================
2008 2007
China 500.5 494.9
Japan 118.7 120.2
United States 91.4 98.1
Russia 68.5 72.4
India 55.2 53.1
South Korea 53.6 51.5
Germany 45.8 48.6
Ukraine 37.1 42.8
Brazil 33.7 33.8
Italy 30.6 31.6
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Source: World Steel Association
(Compiled by Humeyra Pamuk, Editing by Peter Blackburn)
