The Brazilian Steel Institute (IABr) announced that Brazil's crude steel output rose to 3.12 million mt in July, up 5.4 percent over June and up 8.5 percent compared to July 2010.
Brazil's rolled steel product output totaled 1.96 million mt in July, decreasing by 8.64 percent month on month and down 17.4 percent year on year. Of this total, the country's flat steel output stood at 1 million mt - down 15.4 percent from June and down 29.8 percent year on year, while its long steel output amounted to 963,100 metric tons, dropping by 0.3 percent month on month and up 2.5 percent compared to July 2010.
On the other hand, Brazil's crude steel production in the first half of the year amounted 20.95 million mt with an increase of 8.8 percent compared to the same period in 2010, while the country's rolled steel output in this period decreased by four percent to 14.89 million metric tons, including 8.4 million metric tons of flat steel products - down 9.2 percent, and 6.45 million metric tons of long steel products - up 3.9 percent, all compared to the corresponding period of 2010.
Domestic steel sales totaled 1.8 million metric tons in July, down 2.8 percent from the same month last year. Sales in the first seven months totaled 12.7 billion metric tons, increasing slightly by 0.2 percent compared to the same period last year.
Compared to July 2010, steel imports in Brazil increased 25.1 percent to 399,100 mt (US$466.9 million). In the first seven months, Brazil's total steel product imports reached 2.13 billion metric tons (US$2.53 billion), representing a 34.8 percent increase from the same period last year.
Exports of steel products from Brazil in July amounted to 900,000 metric tons - up 58.9 percent year on year, worth US$721.8 million. Exports in the first seven months of the current year totaled 6.54 million mt, worth US$4.99 billion, with increases of 35.8 percent in volume and 69.9 percent in value compared to the corresponding period of 2010.