From January to November, Belgian steelmakers cut steel production by 15% year-on-year.
In November 2023, Belgian steel manufacturers reduced steel production to 249,000 tons, a decrease of 43.2% from the previous month. Compared to the previous year, the country’s steel production decreased by 54.1%. This is proven by data from the World Steel Association.
Belgian steel production for the January-November 2023 period was 5.47 million tons, 15% lower than the same period in 2022.
Belgium’s average monthly steel production from January to November was 497.45 thousand tons, while the figure for the same period in 2022 was 585.27 thousand tons (down 15.01% compared to the same period last year).
According to an article in GMK Center, in mid-September, ArcelorMittal announced the closure of blast furnace A. ghent, belgium, planted for several months to replace the refractory lining. BF A exploded on September 14th and was scheduled to restart at the end of November 2023. This is likely to impact the country’s steel production in September and October. In addition, the negative situation in the EU steel market will also affect production volumes.
Belgium has five steel mills, including one blast furnace (BF&BOF) in Ghent (with an annual steel production capacity of 4.34 million tons), four electric arc mills (two in Charleroi (850,000 tons and 350,000 tons) and two in Chatelet (850,000 tons and 350,000 tons). (1 million tons)). (1.2 million tons) and Genk (1.2 million tons). These are the companies Aperam and ArcelorMittal.
Belgian steel manufacturers have reduced their steel production to 6.94 million tons in 2022, down 0.4% from 2021. In December 2022, the company produced 667,000 tons of steel, an increase of 13.8% year-on-year and 28.3% month-on-month.
Overall, steel production in EU countries increased by 3.2% compared to November last year to 10.6 million tonnes in November 2023. EU steel production from January to November 2023 was 117.6 million tons, down 7.8% year-on-year.
As GMK Center previously reported, European steelmakers in 2022 will reduce their steel production by 10.5% compared to 2021 to 136.7 million tons. Overall, global steel production decreased by 4.3% from last year to 1.831 billion tons.