Local steel production up 5.3% compared to world average growth

India’s steel production grew 5.3 per cent in April outpacing the world’s average growth of 1.7 percent, World Steel Association said.

India produced 7.015 million tonne (mt) steel in April, compared to 6.659 mt in the same month last year. Cumulative production grew 2.5 per cent in the first four months of this year to 27.766 mt, from 27.080 mt the year-ago period, WSA data showed.

Global steel output stood at 136.62 mt in April compared to 134.346 mt in the same month last year. China contributed half of the total global production at 68.8 million tonne.

Chinese production grew by 2.1 percent over the same month last year. Japan produced 8.9 million tonne in April, a decrease of 2.5 percent over April 2013. South Korea produced 6.1 million tonne.

Among the European Union nations, Germany produced 3.7 million tonne, Italy 2 million tonne, France 1.4 million tonne, Spain 1.2 million tonne and Turkey 2.6 million tonne.

Russia produced 5.8 million tonne, an increase of 0.7 percent over the same month last year. Ukraine’s production was 2.6 million tonne.

Recording a dip of 1.6 per cent, the US produced 7 million tonne. Brazil’s production also fell by 5.1 percent to 2.8 million tonne.

“The crude steel capacity utilisation ratio in April was 78.7 percent,” WSA said.