The Latin American steel industry maintains a positive performance during the period January-March 2018 where the consumption of finished steel grew 3%, meanwhile crude steel production and finished steel production grew 5% and 7% respectively, reflecting the best global and regional economic conditions.
Although, imports fell 6%, regional consumption is supplied by 31% of these imports. Exports are 9% higher than Jan-Mar 2017. For its part, regional trade balance remain negative, even though diminished 18%.
Production
Crude steel. The region produced 16.4 million tons (Mt) of crude steel during January-March 2018, 5% higher than the volume recorded in the same period of 2017 (15.6 Mt). Brazil it is still the main producer in the region with 53% of the regional production (8.6 Mt), increasing 5% versus January-March 2017.
Finished steel. Finished steel production reached to 13.8Mt, 7% higher than registered in January-March 2017. The main producers were Brazil with 5.8 Mt (accounting for 42% of the Latin American output) and Mexico with 4.9 Mt (with 35% share of regional output).
Finished steel consumption
In the first three months of the year, the region reached to 16.8 Mt of finished steel consumption, 3% higher than January-March 2017 (5.4 Mt). Largest increases in consumption -in absolute and percentage terms, were recorded in Brazil (additional 439 thousand tons, an increase of 10%), Argentina (351 thousand tons additional tons, up 33%), and Panama (34 thousand tons additional tons, up 42%).
Conversely, in the same period Uruguay, Venezuela and Guatemala recorded declines of 34%, 17% and 13%, respectively.
From Latin-American`s total steel consumption, 57% corresponds to flat products (9.5 Mt), 42% (7.1 Mt) to long products and 1% to seamless tubes (224 thousand tons).
Production April 2018 – Advance Information
Advance information for April 2018, indicates that crude steel production reached to 5.6 Mt in the month, 4% lower than March 2018 and 5% higher than April 2017. The volume recorded during Jan-Apr 2018 was 22.0 Mt, 5% more than Jan-Apr 2017 (20.9 Mt).
The production of finished steel closed at 4.6 Mt, 6% less than March 2018 and up 5% versus April 2017. Between Jan-Apr 2018, the finished steel production reached to 18.4 Mt, up 7% versus Jan-Apr 2017 (17.3 Mt).
Source: Alacero (Latin American Steel Association)
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