Swedish steel production decreased in the first half of the year

According to statistics, Swedish mills' crude steel production in the first six months of the year totalled 2.305 million tonnes, down 4.5% compared with the first half of 2022.

While the monthly production gap increased slightly in June with a difference of 365,000 tonnes and 5.4%, it was slightly less pronounced in July with minus 3.4% and 314,000 tonnes.

Mathias Ternell, Director of Trade Policy at Jernkontoret, said: "July is usually a month of lower production. However, the general downward trend in crude steel production continued during the summer months and was confirmed by the fact that July 2023 production was lower than July 2022."

The production statistics are based on data from eleven steel producers in Sweden. For the full year 2022, crude steel production decreased by 5.9% compared to 2021 to 4.4 million tonnes.

Finished steel deliveries totalled 3.2 million tonnes in 2022. The vast majority of deliveries were exported. Jernkontoret notes that about two-thirds of total crude steel production in Sweden is ore-based and more than half of the production is high-quality alloy steels, while most unqualified steel is imported.