India's April steel production growth outpaces world average

NEW DELHI: India's steel production grew by 5.3 per cent in April outpacing the world's average growth of 1.7 per cent, World Steel Association ( WSA) said.

India produced 7.015 million tonne steel in April, compared to 6.659 MT in the same month last year.

Cumulative production grew by 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 MT.

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

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

Russia produced 5.8 MT, an increase of 0.7 per cent over the same month last year. Ukraine's production was 2.6 MT.

Recording a dip of 1.6 per cent, the US produced 7 MT. Brazil's production also fell by 5.1 per cent to 2.8 MT. "The crude steel capacity utilisation ratio in April was 78.7 per cent," WSA said.