Global pig iron production in February amounted to 113.2 million tons

Global pig iron production in February 2025 fell by 1.8% compared to February 2024 – to 113.2 million tons. At the same time, the figure increased by 0.8% compared to the previous month. This is evidenced by the data of the World Steel Association WorldSteel, according to Ukrmetprom.

In February, the company produced 104.6 million tons of pig iron by the blast furnace method, which is 1.9% less than in February 2024 and 1.9% more than in January, and 8.6 million tons by the direct reduction method (-1.1% y/y, -10.8% m/m).

In January-February, pig iron production decreased by 1.2% year-on-year to 225.56 million tons. Direct reduction produced 18.28 million tons, and blast furnace produced 207.28 million tons.

The largest countries producing pig iron in the period are:

• China – 140.75 million tons (-0.5% y/y);
• India – 24.98 million tons (+5.7% y/y);
• Russia – 9.97 million tons (+0.9% y/y);
• Japan – 9.67 million tons (-6.6% y/y);
• South Korea – 7.45 million tons (+0.02% y/y).

Ukraine ranks 14th among 40 pig iron producing countries with 1.05 million tons in January-February (+1.5% y/y) and 544.4 thousand tons in February (+9.8% y/y; -8.5% m/m).

As GMK Center reported earlier, in 2024, global pig iron production decreased by 1.3% compared to 2023 to 1.391 billion tons. The company produced 1.265 billion tonnes of pig iron in the year, down 1.6% y/y, and 125.57 million tonnes (+4.5% y/y) using the direct reduction method.

The largest countries producing pig iron in 2024 are China – 851.74 million tons (-2.3% y/y), India – 144.91 million tons (+6.7% y/y), Japan – 61.03 million tons (-3.2% yoy), Russia – 58.99 million tons (-5.4% y/y), South Korea – 44.11 million tons (-2.4% y/y).