The history of the modern steel industry started in the late 1850s, since then, steel has been important to the world’s industrial economy. The history of steel industry was enhanced and modernized by the introduction of Open-Hearth process of steel production which made the industries to produce steel out of domestic iron ores.
This process was newly adopted by the steel industries in USA in the year 1888. This time saw rapid innovations in the process of steel production which got its energy from the increased demand for steel from various industries namely, railway industry, automobile industry, industry involved in construction of bridges, etc. During this time, the increased demand as well as supply of steel pushed the ranking of USA to the first position, in terms of the steel production. The utilization of the new system of steel production continued approximately from the year 1910 to the year 1960. After this, a new process Basic Oxygen Process came into picture which produces steel in a more quick and efficient manner. If we go through the history of the steel industry then we will find that from the early 1960s a new process was incepted by the steel industry for the production of steel known as the Process of Electric Arc Furnace.
This process helps these industries in production of stainless steels and also in recycling of scrap steel items which helped the companies to reduce wastage. In the history of the steel industry it can be observed that with the passage of time, the quantity of production by USA has decreased with relation to total world production of steel. After the 1980s, China emerged strongly enough and became the largest producer of steel. India also showed a good performance in this sector in the recent times.
Steel Industry is a very booming industry in the whole world. The increasing demand for steel was mainly generated by the development projects that had been going on among the various places, especially the infrastructural works and real estate projects that had been on the boom around the developing countries. Steel Industry was mainly dominated by the United States of America but this scenario is changed with a rapid pace with the Indian steel companies on an acquisition spree. It has been observed that steel industry has grown tremendously in the last one and a half decade with a strong financial condition.
The increasing needs of steel by the developing countries for its infrastructural projects has pushed the companies in this industry near their operative capacity. The most prominent growth that can be seen in the steel industry was observed during the period 1960 to 1974 when the consumption of steel around the whole world doubled.
