Steel consumption rose 8.5 per cent to 51.23 million tonne (mt) during April-February period of this fiscal against 47.24mt in the the year-ago period, on the back of steady rise in demand from sectors including automobiles, white goods and construction.

However, production rose only 4.5 per cent during the reporting period at 54.35mt over 52.02mt tonne in the same period last year. Imports also surged by 22 per cent to 6.61mt during the period, thereby putting pressure on domestic prices. But, exports continued to slide and fell by 34.9 per cent to 2.62mt during the period, reminiscent of the fact that the Western markets are still to recover from the economic crisis of 2008-09.  

Leading steel producers like Tata Steel and Rashtriya Ispat Nigam reported 11.1 per cent provisional growth to 4.56mt and 10.9 per cent increase to 2.6mt, respectively, during April-February over the same period previous fiscal. Production of SAIL, increased a meagre 0.3 per cent to 9.19mt against 9.16mt during the April-February period.

Moreover, in February alone steel output rose 4.8 per cent to 4.97mt over the year-ago period. But Tata Steel saw output declining 11.4 per cent at 3.5 lakh tonne in the month against production of 3.95 lakh tonne during the same month a year ago.

However, SAIL and RINL saw their February production surging by 13.3 per cent to 9.29 lakh tonne and 57.6 per cent to 2.49 lakh tonne, respectively. The steel consumption in February increased by 8.7 per cent to 5.05 mt as compared to the corresponding period of the previous year.