World's steel output drops, India's unchanged in January

NEW DELHI: A marginal dip in Chinese output led to fall in world's steel production by 0.4 per cent to 129.78 million tonnes (MT) even as India maintained its volumes at 6.95 MT in January.

Chinese production declined by 3.2 per cent to 61.6 MT in January compared to 63.62 MT a year earlier. The fall in output in the world's largest steel producing nation also caused a 1.5 per cent dip in Asian contribution to the global production.

According to the monthly report of premier industry body World Steel Association (WSA), Japan produced 9.4 MT steel in January, clocking an increase of 6.1 per cent over the same month last year. South Korea produced 6 MT.

European Union registered a 7.3 per cent growth in output at 14.4 MT compared to 13.4 MT a year earlier. Germany produced 3.7 MT, Italy 2.2 MT, Spain 1.1 MT and the UK 1.1 MT in January this year.

Turkey's crude steel production for January was 2.8 MT, down by 0.9 per cent. Russia produced 5.9 MT, an increase of 4.1 per cent compared to the same month last year. Ukraine's production was 2.5 MT.

Reporting a 0.5 per cent decline, the US produced 7.3 MT steel during the month. Brazil's production was at 2.7 MT, a decrease of 1.4 per cent.

"The crude steel capacity utilisation ratio in January 2014 was 74.4 per cent," WSA said.