Ukraine rose to 11th in the ranking of the world's 64 largest steel producing countries compiled by the World Steel Association (Worldsteel) in 2020. The country increased production of crude steel by 22.1% to 1.906 million tons in December 2020, compared with the same period in 2019, climbing from 13th to 12th place.
Most of the top ten producers (excluding Japan, the United States, and the Russian Federation) increased production of crude steel in December 2020, compared with December 2019, the CFTS portal reports, citing the Interfax Ukraine news agency.
The top ten steel-producing countries in December were China (91.252 million tons, a 7.7% increase), India (9.796 million tons, 4.4% increase), Japan (7.526 million tons, 3.3% reduction), the United States (6.434 million tons, 11.8% reduction), Russia (6.110 million tons, 0.8% reduction), South Korea (5.952 million tons, 1.2% increase), Turkey (3.403 million tons, 7.7% increase), Germany (3.137 million tons, 10.6% increase), Brazil (2.886 million tons, 17.2% increase), and Iran (2.660 million tons, 19.6% increase).
In the entire 2020, the top ten steel-producing countries were China (1 billion 52.999 million tons, 5.2% increase), India (99.570 million tons, 10.6% reduction), Japan (83.194 million tons, 16.2% reduction), Russia (73.4 million tons, 2.6% increase), the United States (72.690 million tons, 17.2% reduction), South Korea (67.121 million tons, 6% reduction), Turkey (35.763 million tons, 6% increase), Germany (35.658 million tons, 10% reduction), Brazil (30.971 million tons, 4.9% reduction), and Iran (29.030 million tons, 13.4% increase).
They were followed by Ukraine (20.616 million tons, 1.1% reduction), Taiwan (China, 20.570 million tons, 6.3% reduction), Italy (20.2 million tons, 12.9% reduction), Vietnam (19.5 million tons, 11.6% increase), and Mexico (16.854 million tons, 8.3% reduction).
In total, the 64 countries produced 1 billion 829.140 million tons of steel in 2020, which is 0.9% less than they produced in 2019.
Ukraine produced 20.848 million tons of crude steel in 2019, to rank 13th.
As reported earlier, the Ukrainian company, Interpipe, has invested USD 1 billion in the Interpipe Steel electric steel-making complex (Dnipro). This is the first steel plant to be built from scratch in Ukraine since the country attained independence. The plant complies with European environmental standards: its CO2 emissions do not exceed 250 kilograms per ton of steel. It is equipped with a modern dust and gas cleaning system.
