Steel output up 6% in Jan-Sept; global production declines

India's steel production rose by almost 6 per cent to 71.09 million tonnes (MT) in the first nine months of this year, even as the global output contracted by 0.5 per cent to about 1.19 billion tonne.

According to the latest data by World Steel Association (World Steel), Asia was the only region where production of the metal registered an upward trend.

"In the first nine months of 2016, Asia produced 825.9 MT of crude steel, an increase of 0.6 per cent over the first three quarters of 2015," it said in a statement.

The EU produced 121.3 MT of crude steel during the first nine months of 2016, down by 4.8 per cent year-on-year, while output in North America's stood at 83.9 MT, a decrease of 1.4 per cent over the same period.

The CIS nations produced 76.4 MT of crude steel in the January-September 2016, a decrease of 0.1 per cent over the same months of 2015, World Steel said.

For September, World Steel said production for the 66 countries reporting to it was 132.9 MT, a growth of 2 per cent compared to September 2015.

Crude steel capacity utilisation ratio of the 66 nations in September this year was 70 per cent. It was 69.5 per cent in the same month of last year.

Capacity utilisation ratio for September this year is 1.5 percentage points higher than the previous month's ratio, it added.