Steel consumption up 7.6% to 56 MT in FY'10

Steel consumption rose 7.6 per cent to 56.32 million tonne (mt) in 2009-10 as against 52.35 mt in the year-ago period, on account of rising demand from sectors, including automobiles, whitegoods and construction.

However, production rose only 4.2 per cent during the reporting period at 59.57 mt over 57.16 mt tonne in the same period last year, according to the provisional data obtained from the steel ministry.

Imports also surged by 23 per cent to 7.18 mt during the period, thereby further increasing the domestic availability of steel and putting pressure on local prices.

But, exports continued to slide and fell by 28.7 per cent to 3.16 mt during the period on account of slow demand recovery in the primary market of Indian goods--Western markets-- which are still to recover from the economic crisis.

Leading steel producers like Tata Steel and Rashtriya Ispat Nigam reported 10.5 per cent provisional growth to 5.02 mt and 15.7 per cent increase to 2.9 mt, respectively, during April-March over the same period previous fiscal.

Production of SAIL, increased a meagre 0.9 per cent to 10.20 mt against 10.11 mt during the April-March period. The figures are provisional and could not be confirmed with the companies.

Moreover, in March alone steel output rose 6.7 per cent to 5.48 mt over the year-ago period. Tata Steel saw output rising 6.4 per cent at 4.6 lakh tonne in the month against production of 4.35 lakh tonne during the same month a year ago.

However, state-owned SAIL and RINL saw their March production surging by 32.6 per cent to 1.26 mt and 83.3 per cent to 3.08 lakh tonne, respectively.

Steel consumption in March increased by 6.8 per cent to 5.45 mt over the same month in 2009.

In March, imports surged 35.7 per cent to 5.66 lakh tonne against 4.17 lakh tonne last March, while exports nosedived 45.5 per cent to 2.18 lakh tonne from about 4 lakh tonne shipped in March 2009.