New Delhi: India's steel production grew at the fastest pace among the top producing nations in October at 8.5 percent even as world's average growth remained stagnant.
India produced 7.080 million tonnes (MT) steel last month compared to 6.523 MT in the year ago period, data prepared by World Steel Association (WSA) said today.
On the other hand, production of steel declined during the month in major producing nations such as China, Japan and the US, barring Russia which posted a 1.6 percent growth in October output compared to the same month last year.
China, the world's largest producer of steel, reported a 0.3 percent fall in production. Output fell by 1.7 percent in Japan and by 0.7 percent in the US.
China, Japan, the US and India are world's top four steel producing nations. The order has remained unchanged for quite some years now.
These four countries contributed over 91 million tonnes (MT) to the world's total production of 136.7 MT steel during October, which remained flat during the month.
China produced 67.5 MT steel, Japan 9.4 MT and South Korea 6.2 MT, up by 4.5 per cent. The US produced 7.3 MT of crude steel in October.
Among the European Union nations, Germany produced 3.5 MT of crude steel in October, a decline of 5.9 percent compared to the same month last year. Italy produced 2.1 MT, France 1.5 MT and Spain 1.3 MT.
Turkey's crude steel production for October 2014 was 2.7 MT, down by 11 percent over the same month last year. Brazil produced 3.1 MT, up by 2.7 percent.
"The crude steel capacity utilisation ratio in October, 2014 was 74.7 percent," WSA said.
During the first 10 months of the current year, world's steel production was up by two percent to 1,367.50 MT. China remained the largest producer during the period at 685.34 MT, Japan 92.49 MT, the US 73.66 MT and India at 69.49 MT.
