China's Yankuang Energy said on Tuesday that it was open to negotiations to buy the remaining shares in its majority-owned unit Yancoal Australia, after the Australian coal firm rejected a $1.8-billion offer.

Diversified miner Rio Tinto has inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Germany’s Salzgitter Group to study the optimisation of Rio’s Australian and Canadian iron-ore products for use in a green steel project, in Germany.

Newly appointed Resources Minister Madeleine King is looking at Australian gas producers to increase supply to domestic markets, but has also noted that coal-fired power stations would be essential to combat Australia’s energy crunch in the short term.

Finished steel consumption in April-May rose by 10.1pc on the year to 18.5mn t, while production climbed by 7.7pc against the previous year to 19.11mn t.

In late May 2022, key iron and steel enterprises produced 25.5119 million tons of crude steel, 22.5128 million tons of pig iron and 24.9286 million tons of steel.

GDP returns to pre-pandemic levels, up 1.9% q/q in the first quarter

Below is a ranking of the 50 top steel-producing companies. This list is updated in early June every year. An extended listing of top steel producers 2020/2021 is available from the PDF under the table.

Brazil produced 2.9 Mt, down 4.0%. Iran is estimated to have produced 2.2 Mt, down 20.7%.