India's steel output declines by 65 percent World Steel Association

India’s crude steel output declined by 65 percent to 3.13 million tonnes in April 2020, as per a report released by the World Steel Association on May 24, 2020. In comparison, the report stated that India had produced 9.02 million tonnes of steel in April 2019. 

India’s steel output in March 2020 declined by 14 percent in comparison to March 2019. This decline comes amid the nationwide lockdown imposed on March 25, 2020 to contain the spread of COVID-19 pandemic in India. 

The complete lockdown brought a halt to all economic activities, besides essential services, which impacted the production, demand and supply of steel in India. 

Global Steel output declines

The global steel output was also impacted by the coronavirus outbreak with lockdowns imposed in the majority of the nations across the world to tackle the deadly virus infection. 

As per the World Steel report, the global steel output declined by 13 percent, from 157.67 million tonnes in April 2019 to 137.09 million tonnes in April 2020. 

Key Highlights

• China had reported a 1.7 percent fall in its steel output in March 2020 at 78.97 million tonnes. The nation has, however, started showing growth in its production. 
 
• China is the largest crude steel producer in the world, accounting for more than 51 percent of the global steel output. The nation produced 85.03 MT steel in April 2020, which marks a marginal rise of 0.2 percent as compared to 84.87 MT in April 2019.

• The United States also reported a decline in its steel production, as it had produced 4.96MT of crude steel in April 2020, which is 32 percent lower than 7.35MT in April 2019.

• Japan also reported a 23 percent fall in its steep production from 8.64 MT in April 2019 to 6.61 MT in April 2020.

• South Korea’s steel production also showed a decline of about 8.4 percent from 6 MT in April 2019 to 5.50 MT crude steel in April 2020. 

•Among the European Union nations, Italy's steel production decreased by 30.7 percent at 1.35MT, Germany’s crude  0.67MT of crude steel production in April 2020 and France saw a 37.9 percent decline in steel output to 0.80 MT in April 2020. 

• Russia’s crude steel output amounted to 4.70 MT in April 2020, while Ukraine produced 1.33 MT, Brazil produced 1.81 MT and Turkey produced 2.24 MT.

• According to the World Steel Association, many of the figures are estimates and can be revised with next month’s production update. 

Background

India had become the world's second-largest steel-producing country in January 2019, relacing Japan. India is only behind China, which is the world’s largest producer of crude steel.

According to the World Steel Association, India's crude steel production in 2018 was at 106.5 MT, which is up by 4.9 percent from 101.5 MT in 2017.