Brazilian crude steel production in March reached 2.7 million mt, down 7.4 percent year-on-year, but up 3.7 percent month-on-month, according to data released on Friday by the nation’s steel institute, IABr.
For the cumulative period of January and March, Brazil produced 8.4 million mt of crude steel, up 0.7 percent year-on-year.
Brazilian finished steel output in March was stable at 2.2 million mt, but increased 4.4 percent in a three-month period to 6.5 million mt. Out of the total volume produced in March, flat steel accounted for 1.3 million mt and long steel for 870,400 mt. In the cumulative period of January in March, those products saw output volumes reach 4 million mt and 2.5 million mt, respectively.
According to IABr, domestic sales in the third month of 2015 rose 1.3 percent year-on-year to 1.9 million mt. In Q1, domestic sales reached 5.2 million mt, down 5.3 percent year-on-year.
IABr said despite adverse conditions in the global market, steel product exports in March reached 1 million mt at $673 million due mainly to the “sales of semi-finished products”. In the quarter, Brazil exported 2.8 million mt of steel products at $1.8 billion, up 39.5 percent year-on-year in terms of volumes and 21.6 percent in terms of value.
In March, Brazil imported 299,000 mt of steel products at a $306 million value. In Q1, that volume reached 995,000 mt, 13.5 percent up year-on-year. Contrary to exports, most of the imported volume was finished steel.
Brazil’s apparent consumption of steel in March was 2.2 million mt, up 2.7 percent year-on-year, and and 6.1 million in Q1, up 0.5 percent year-on-year.