Indian steel production grew 7.4 per cent during August 2011

21 Sep 2011 Evaluate

According to the latest estimates of the World Steel Association, India's steel production grew 7.4 per cent during August 2011 and stood at 6.16 million tonnes in August against 5.73 million tonnes in the month of August last year. Meanwhile, the global steel production increased by 9.8 per cent during this period and the world steel output grew to 124 million tonnes against 113 million tonnes in the previous year.

For the first eight months of the year 2011, India's steel output grew 5.3 per cent to 47.95 million tonnes against 45.52 million tonnes in corresponding period last year, while global output in the first eight months of 2011 grew by 8.3 per cent to 1.01 billion tonnes against 933 million tonnes in the corresponding last period.

China, with a 13.8 per cent growth in output at 58.72 million tonnes, was the world's largest producer of steel in August, followed by Japan at 8.9 million tonnes and the US at 7.53 million tonnes. South Korea’s production rose 19.3% year-on-year to 5.5 mmt. India, at present, is the fourth largest steel producer.

In the European Union, Germany’s crude steel production increased by 5.3% to 3.6 mmt, while Italy’s output rose 25.6% to 1.4 mmt and France’s increased 19.7% to 1 mmt in August. However, Spain’s production fell 7.6% to 1.1 mmt. The US, meanwhile, produced 7.5 mmt of crude steel in August 2011, a rise of 13.8% compared with August 2010.

However,domestic steel consumption for the period grew by a mere 1.3 per cent to 28 million tonnes. Consumption in the first five months of current fiscal has been largely subdued due to the lower demand from sectors such as construction, automobiles and consumer durables.