Venezuela’s steel industry needs some 1.6 million mt of steel per year to operate at 50 percent of its capacity, according to recent estimates from the nation’s metals and mining association, AIMM.
According to AIMM, Venezuela’s finished steel needs for both flats and longs currently nears 920,000 mt and 765,000 mt, respectively.
Miguel Eseverri, president at AIMM, said the country’s government, which currently runs Sidor, the nation’s largest steelmaker, should reactivate some of the country’s basic state-run companies, so they could boost domestic production at the local metals and steel sectors.
A weak supply at the nation’s steel industry made Venezuela import some 6,000 mt of beams and steel sheets to build a second viaduct over the Maracaibo lake, among other projects that counted on imported steel.
Eseverri said all these materials could have been produced domestically in Venezuela.