South African crude steel production fell 23.5% year-on-year (y/y) in March to an estimated 560,000 tons, the World Steel Association's latest figures reveal. Steel production was recorded at 732,000 tons in March 2010.

In the first three months of 2011, the country's crude steel production dropped 23.2% to 1.62 million tons from 2.11 million tons in the first three months of last year.

South Africa makes up roughly half of Africa's crude steel production.

In March Africa's output dropped 17.8% to 1.19 million tons from 1.45 million tons in March 2010.

For the first three months of the year African production declined 15.9% to 3.47 million tons from 4.13 million tons for the first quarter of last year.

World crude steel production for the 64 countries reporting to the World Steel Association was 129 million tons in March 2011 and 372 million tons for the first quarter 2011.

This is 7.0% higher than March 2010 and 8.8% higher than the first quarter 2010.

In the first three months of 2011, Asia produced 237.3 million tons of crude steel, an increase of 9.1% over the first quarter of 2010 while the EU produced 45.6 million tons of crude steel in the first quarter of 2011, up by 6.9% compared to the same quarter of 2010.

North America's crude steel production in the first three months of 2011 was 28.9 million tons, 6.0% higher than the first three months of 2010.

China's crude steel production for March 2011 was 59.4 million tons, up 9.0% compared to March 2010.

The world crude steel capacity utilisation ratio of the 64 countries in March 2011 was 81.9%, a slight decrease from the updated figure of 83.0% for February 2011.

Compared to March 2010, the utilisation ratio in March 2011 is 2.5 percentage points higher.