In 1996, China manufactured just over 100 Mt of steel and became the world's largest steel producer. Official Chinese energy consumption statistics for the steel industry include activities not directly associated with the production of steel, 'double-count' some coal-based energy consumption, and do not cover the entire Chinese steelmaking industry. In this paper, we make adjustements to the reported statistical data in order to provide energy use values for steel production in China that are comparable to statistics used internationally. We find that for 1996, official statistics need to be reduced by 1365 PJ to account for nonsteel production activities and double-counting. Official statistics also need to be increased by 415 PJ in order to include steelmaking energy use of small plants not included in official statistics. This leads to an overall reduction of 950 PJ for steelmaking in China in 1996. Thus, the official final energy use value of 4018 PJ drops to 3067 PJ. In primary energy terms, the official primary energy use value of 4555 PJ is reduced to 3582 PJ when these adjustments are made. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.