POSCO Falls from 5th to 6th
The World Steel Association recently announced that China Baowu Steel Group beat ArcelorMittal and became the world’s largest steel company last year, with a crude steel production volume of 115.29 million tons. The state-run Chinese company has acquired multiple Chinese steel companies for years.
ArcelorMittal fell to the second place with 78.46 million tons. Last year, its crude steel production dropped from 97.31 million tons due to production setbacks attributable to COVID-19. ArcelorMittal was the world’s largest steel company from 2006 to 2019.
HBIS and Shagang Group of China came in third and fourth, respectively. Nippon Steel took the fifth spot. The Chinese companies rose one and two notches, respectively.
POSCO fell from fifth to sixth. Its crude steel production fell from 43.12 million tons to 40.58 million tons last year. Hyundai Steel fell from 15th to 16th. It produced 19.81 million tons of crude steel in 2020. The top 100 list for 2020 includes the two South Korean companies along with no less than 58 Chinese companies.
Last year, China’s crude steel production amounted to 1,064.8 million tons, followed by those of India (100.3 million), Japan (83.2 million), the United States (72.7 million), Russia (71.6 million) and South Korea (67.1 million).