Bloomberg reported that steel output in Japan fell by 2.7% YoY in March 2011 from a year earlier, the first drop in 17 months after the nation's worst earthquake damaged plants in devastated areas.
The Japan Iron and Steel Federation said that crude steel output totaled 9.09 million tonnes. For the financial year ended March, steel production increased by 15% to 110.8 million tonnes.
JISF said that Japanese steel output from blast furnaces fell 4.2% from a year earlier to 7.08 million tonnes in March 2011, while production from electric arc furnaces gained 3.3% to 2.01 million tonnes.
( Source: www.steelguru.com )