Steel consumption dips 5.2% in Sept; output down 1.3%

India’s steel consumption declined by more than 5 per cent in September to 6.2 million tonnes (mt) compared with the earlier month, a development that indicates a weakness in the business sentiment.

Moreover, the production of the metal too went south by 1.3 per cent last month to 7.34 mt compared with August 2015, latest data by the Steel Ministry’s Joint Plant Committee (JPC) showed.

“Domestic steel consumption in September 2015 (6.2 mt) declined by 5.2 per cent compared to August 2015 and increased by 5 per cent compared to September 2014,” JPC said. However, in the first half of the fiscal, the consumption of total finished steel grew by 4.1 per cent to 39.14 mt compared with April-September 2014-15, it added.

According to experts, although the demand in the first half shows optimism, there is a huge dip in demand when the consumption in August is analysed in comparison to July 2015. Also there is a fall in demand in April-September as against April-August.

As per the JPC, finished steel consumption grew by 4.6 per cent in April-August 2015 at 33.025 mt compared with the year-ago period. In August, the demand grew by 4.8 per cent to 6.63 mt compared with July and increased by 0.8 per cent compared to August 2014.