Rio de Janeiro – Brazilian production of bulk steel grew 9% in the first five months of the year, reaching 14.8 million tonnes. In May, national steel production totalled 3.3 million tonnes, with growth of 14.7% over the same period last year and 9.6% over April this year. The figures were disclosed on Monday (20) by the Brazilian Steel Institute (IABr).
Production of laminates reached 10.8 million tonnes from January to May, showing moderate expansion of 0.1% over the same period in 2010. The monthly index, however, shows that Brazilian production of laminates (2.2 million tonnes) grew 5.2% over April. In comparison with May last year, there was retraction of 2.5%.
IABr shows that sales of ironworks products on the domestic market reached two million tonnes in May, expansion of 3.9% over the previous month. In comparison with May 2010, there was a reduction of 0.4%. In the accumulated result for 2011, domestic sales represented good performance. They reached 9.3 million tonnes, with expansion of 4.8% over the same period last year.
In exports, IABr has noticed growth in the accumulated value for the first five months of the year both in volume (33.4%), and in value (71.4%). Shipments abroad totalled 4.6 million tonnes from January to May, which resulted in revenues to the country of approximately US$ 3.5 billion. Imports, in turn, suffered retraction of 38.9% in the period, with 1.4 million tonnes of ironworks products.
IABr also informed that the national apparent consumption of ironworks products dropped 6.8% in May and 3% in the accumulated result from the year to May, as against the same periods in 2010.
*Translated by Mark Ament
