Turkey's steel production increased in May compared to April 2014

Statistics released by the Turkish Iron and Steel Products Association (TCUD) indicate that the country's steel production declined slightly during the month of May 2014. Turkey's steel production totaled 3.02 million tonnes in May this year, down 0.7 percent from the previous year, according to TCUD. However, output in May was 15.1 percent higher than the previous month.

Of the 3.02 million tons of steel, 2.15 million tons were produced in blast furnaces and 0.862 million tons were smelted in electric furnaces. At the same time, blast-furnace production decreased by 0.5 percent compared to production during May 2013. A decrease of 1.1 percent was also observed in the production of electric ovens in May 2014 compared to May 2013.

Turkey's total steel production from January to May this year amounted to 14.06 million tonnes. The country's steel production in the first five months of this year decreased by 2.2 percent compared with output during the corresponding five months in 2013.

During the period from January to May of this year, the total blast furnace production was 4.06 million tons, while the total production of electric arc furnaces was 10 million tons. The total production of electric arc furnaces decreased by 1.32 percent over the previous year. Blast furnace production grew by 4.8 percent during the given period in 2014 compared to the previous year.