In July this year, Brazilian crude steel production totaled 3 million metric tons, rising by 8.6 percent as compared to June and down by 4.1 percent from July last year, according to the Brazil Steel Institute (IABr).
Brazil's rolled steel product output totaled 2.3 million mt in July, rising by 3.8 percent month on month and up 11.5 percent year on year. Of this total, the country's flat steel output stood at 1.3 million mt - up 3.4 percent over June and up 22 percent year on year, while Brazil's long steel output amounted to 962,800 metric tons, rising by 4.4 percent month on month and down 0.3 percent compared to July 2011.
On the other hand, in the first seven months of this year, Brazil's crude steel output fell 2.6 percent to 20.4 million metric tons, while its rolled steel output increased by 3.3 percent to 15.5 million metric tons, including 9 million metric tons of flat products - up 5.8 percent, and 6.5 million metric tons of long products - remaining unchanged, all compared to the corresponding period of 2011.
Domestic steel product sales totaled 1.8 million metric tons in July, remaining stable year on year, while domestic sales in the first seven months totaled 12.8 million metric tons, increasing by 1.2 percent compared to the same period last year.
Brazil's exports of steel products in July amounted to 724,200 metric tons, down 19.5 percent year on year, worth US$540 million. Steel product exports in the January-July period of this year totaled 5.9 million mt, worth US$4.3 billion, with decreases of 9.7 percent in volume and 13.8 percent in value compared to the corresponding period of 2011.
Meanwhile, the country's steel import volume in July totaled 337,100 metric tons (US$376 million), with the total in the first seven months reaching 2.3 million metric tons of steel products (US$2.7 billion), representing an 8.2 percent increase from the same period last year.