The Brazilian Steel Institute announced that Brazilian crude steel production in February 2010 was 2.4 million tonnes, representing a reduction of 11.1% compared to January and an increase of 47.9% over the same month in 2009.

For rolled products of February, 2.0 million tons represented a 5.2% decrease compared to the previous month and increased 74.5% compared with February last year. With these results, the combined production in 2010 totaled 5.2 million tonnes of crude steel and 4.1 million tons of rolled products, which represented an increase of 58.9% and 88.5% respectively over the same period 2009.

 
As for domestic sales, the result of February 2010 was 1.6 million tonnes of products, down 2.4% on the previous month. When compared, however, with the same period in 2009, recorded an increase of 64.0%. Cumulative sales in 2010 of 3.2 million tonnes, grew by 66.6% over the same period last year.

 
Exports of steel products in February 2010 reached 653.4 thousand tonnes worth USD 350.4 million. With this product exports in 2010 totaled 1.3 million tons and USD 723.3 million, an increase of 45.7% in volume and 6.1% in value compared to the same period last year.

 
With regard to imports, was recorded in February volume of 360.7 thousand tonnes (USD 312.4 million) for a total thus 744.5 thousand tons of steel products last year, 81.0% above the same period last year.

 
The national apparent consumption of steel products in February was 1.9 million tonnes, totaling 3.9 million tons in 2010. These figures represented an increase of 74.3% and 73.0% respectively over the same period last year.