August crude steel production by the 64 countries reporting to the World Steel Association was 130.4 million mt, down 1.1% on a revised July total of 131.9 million mt and up 5.2% year on year, the WSA said Friday.
August's output, which averaged 4.20 million mt/day, took the total for the year to date to 1.050 billion mt, up 2.3%.
The industry's capacity utilization rate fell to 75.4%, its lowest since January and 1.0 percentage point higher than August 2012.
Chinese production in August was up 12.8% at 66.3 million mt, and accounted for just over half of global output for the first time.
Output also rose in India (0.9%) and Taiwan (10.1%), and fell in Japan (-0.6%)and Korea (-13.1%).
EU production was up 1.3% year on year at 12.0 million mt. Falls of 6.3% in Germany and 7.5% in Italy were more than offset by rises of 21.7% in France, 10.3% in Spain and 4.0% in the UK.
Turkish output, at 2.575 million mt, was 15.4% lower than August 2012.
Production in the CIS was down 2.0% as a 4.1% increase in Ukraine was outweighed by falls in Belarus (-35.4%), Kazakhstan (-21.8%), and Russia (-1.9%).
North American August production of 9.9 million mt was 3.8% lower than in the 2012 month. Canada (-16.1%), Mexico (-2.3%) and the US (-2.9%) all saw declines.
South American output rose 6.6%, with increases reported by Argentina (26.1%), Brazil (4.6%)and Venezuela (13.8%).
The strongest year-on-year growth in any region came in the Middle East, where August's production was up 10.2%.
