Italy's electric arc furnaces (EAF) produced 6.279 million metric tons of steel in January-April 2007, an increase of 11.7 percent on the same period last year. In the month of April alone, Italian EAF mills registered an output of 1.528 million metric tons, up 10.7 percent year on year.
Meanwhile, Italian blast furnace production in the first four months of the current year was up 10.8 percent year on year, totaling 5.15 million metric tons. In April, however, blast furnace steel production in Italy dropped by 7.2 percent year on year, with a total output of 1.26 million metric tons.
For the first five months of 2007 Italy's crude steel production reached 13.851 million metric tons, up 2.8 percent on the corresponding period of last year. However, production in May came to just 2.775 million metric tons, compared to 2.843 million metric tons in May 2006.