Quiz: How much steel did the world’s No. 2 country produce?

Steel has been in the news lately because the newly unveiled, bizarre-looking, 2012 Olympic mascots, Wenlock and Mandeville, are supposed to have been made out of the last two drops of British steel used to construct the 2012 London Olympic stadium. So, the quiz question I’d like to highlight this week is:

In 2009, China produced 568 million metric tons of crude steel. How much did the No. 2 country produce?

a) 88 million metric tons    b) 298 million    c) 458 million

Answer after the jump …

Answer:

A, 88 million metric tons. In 2009, China produced 567.8 million metric tons of steel (47 percent of the world’s total) according to the World Steel Association. That’s a whopping 6.5 times the 87.5 million metric tons that No. 2 Japan produced and 2.6 times what China itself produced a mere six years earlier in 2003. In 2009, world crude-steel production tumbled 8 percent compared with 2008, as construction projects were put on hold during the Great Recession. But China has been building large amounts of infrastructure and increased its steel production 13.5 percent.

And for more questions about how the world works, check out the rest of the FP Quiz.