The significant rise in Italian steel industry production levels in the first four months of 2007 has been based fairly evenly on production increases in both the longs and flats segments in Italy - as seen from the data released by Federacciai (federation of Italian steel industry enterprises) for the first quarter of the year.
For the January-April period, the Italian steel industry recorded total output of 11.05 million metric tons, four percent up on the same period of 2006.
According to the Federacciai figures, in the first quarter of this year, Italy produced 4.75 million metric tons of long products, up 12 percent from a year earlier. March 2007 alone saw longs output of 1.77 million metric tons, compared to 1.55 million in February and 1.426 million in January.
With regard to flats, Q1 production in Italy reached 3.88 million metric tons, compared to 3.29 million the previous year, i.e. up 17.9 percent. March flats production came to 1.33 million metric tons.