The Italian iron and steel federation Federacciai has announced Italy’s preliminary finished steel production figures for the month of October. Accordingly, Italian long steel output decreased on year-on-year basis for the 12th month in a row in October, totaling 1.119 million metric tons, down 11 percent year on year. Despite the relative slowdown of the downtrend in October given the year-on-year fall of 15.7 percent in Q3, in October Italy’s long steel output was below the output in the corresponding month of 2009 for the second month in a row. Compared to October 2009, output was down 60,000 mt or five percent.
On the other hand, in October this year Italy’s flat steel production amounted to 1.326 million metric tons, down six percent year on year. This was the second-highest year-on-year fall in 2012 after the 7.2 percent decline in August. The figures for Italian flat steel output in November should indicate a stronger decrease in line with the impact of the difficulties which faced domestic producer Ilva.
In the first 10 months of the current year, Italian long steel output decreased 9.8 percent to 9.949 million metric tons, while domestic flat steel production increased by two percent to 12.623 million metric tons, both on year-on-year basis.