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China's crude steel output tumbles to lowest level in two years

By Yu Hongyan (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2008-12-16 17:46

China's crude steel production dropped 12.4 percent in November from a year earlier to 35.19 million tons, the lowest monthly output since April, 2006, according to figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Monday.

Crude steel production amounted to 462 million tons in the first 11 months, which may make it hard for the industry to reach the expected 500 million tons of annual output, as it would be impossible for production in December to reach 38 million tons, said an analyst from langesteel.com, a steel information provider.

However, the daily output of crude steel grew slightly to 1.17 million tons, up 15,000 tons from that of October which signals that the steel industry is stabilizing, China Securities Journal quoted an analyst from Mysteel.com as saying.

NBS statistics show that the production of pig iron plummeted 16.2 percent year-on-year to 33.52 million tons in November, and the output of steel products shrank to 42.30 million tons, down 11 percent from the same period last year.