World Steel Dyanamics published its annual World-Class Steelmakers list.

Some of the characteristics of a World-Class Steelmaker may include the following:
- Has a strong leader
- Efforts to gain the competitive advantage, at the expense of competitors, are intense and continuous
- Leaders are increasingly empowered and skilled in divining key intelligence about market developments
- Foward looking and flexible
- Effective raw material strategy
- Usually outperforms many of its peers
- Pro-active in harnessing steel'ls tenological revolution
- Tolerates risk
- Growing more international

Currently, companies on the list account for about 42% of non-Chinese steel consumption and 23% of Chinese steel product deliveries.

"We believe WSD's list of World-Class Steelmakers will continue to be "winners" despite the challenging environment created by a fast-changing industry landscape," WSD wrote. "The industry will remain competitive, imbued with chaos and characterized by high price volatility compared to historic periods."

Korea's POSCO topped the list for the fourth consecutive year, with Russia's Novolipetsk (NLMK) coming in second, and Brazil's CSN third.