Brazil sees increase in crude steel output

Brazil's steel association IBS has announced that the country's crude steel output increased 4.2 percent year on year to 2.79 million metric tons in October. In the first ten months of the year, Brazil's crude steel output reached 25.6 million metric tons, down 2.9 percent year on year due to the January accident at domestic steelmaker CSN's blast furnace. Brazil's flat rolled output amounted to 1.32 million metric tons in October, up 6.3 year on year. Meanwhile, flat rolled output for the first 10 months of 2006 rose 1.8 percent to 12 million metric tons. Long steel production last month also increased 6.3 percent to 798,500 metric tons, while output for the first 10 months of the year rose 9.4 percent to 7.7 million metric tons.