India's crude steel production drops 3.2% to 9.28 MT in Jan: Report

India's crude steel production registered a decline of 3.26 per cent to 9.288 million tonnes (MT) in January this year, according to World Steel Association (worldsteel).

The country had produced 9.591 MT of crude steel during the corresponding month last year, the global industry body said in its latest report.

Crude steel production for the 64 countries reporting to the association was 154.4 million tonnes (MT) in January 2020, a 2.1 per cent increase compared to January 2019, the report said.

The world's largest steel producing country, China, reported a crude steel output of 84.3 MT in January, an increase of 7.2 per cent compared to the year-ago period.

Japan produced 8.2 MT of crude steel in the period under consideration, down 1.3 per cent from January 2019.

South Korea's crude steel production was 5.8 MT in January 2020, a decrease of eight per cent from the corresponding period last year, the report noted.

Members of worldsteel represent approximately 85 per cent of the world's steel production, including over 160 steel producers with 9 of the 10 largest steel companies, national and regional steel industry associations, and steel research institutes.

India's crude steel production remains almost flat at 8.662 MT in April

India's crude steel output remained almost flat at 8.662 million tonne (MT) during April 2019, according to official data.

The domestic crude steel production stood at 8.653 MT during April 2018, according to a report by the Joint Plant Committee (JPC), which comes under the Ministry of Steel.

"Crude steel production stood at 8.662 MT in April 2019, up by 0.1 per cent over April 2018," the report said.

State-run Steel Authority of India Ltd, Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd along with private firms Tata Steel, Essar Steel, JSW Steel, and Jindal Steel and Power produced 5.082 MT and the remaining 3.58 MT came from other producers, it added.

During April this year, the production of hot metal was 1.4 per cent down at 5.825 MT, against 5.907 MT in April 2018.

The output of pig iron grew 3.9 per cent to 0.537 MT in April, compared with about 0.517 MT in the same month a year ago.

The JPC is the only institution in the country that collects data on the domestic iron and steel sector.

India has set an ambitious target of increasing its crude steel production capacity to 300 million tonne by 2030-31.