In January this year, Italian crude steel output decreased by 19.7 percent year on year to 1.801 million metric tons, according to the figures released by the Italian steel producers association Federacciai. January is the 10th month in a row in which a year-on-year output fall has been recorded, witnessing a year-on-year fall as high as those seen in 2009.

It should be noted that the output downtrend has been dramatically influenced by two particular factors. On one hand, January of the current year is the first month in which Taranto-based domestic steel producer Ilva did not produce a single metric ton of pig iron from its blast furnace No. 1, which was turned off on December 8, 2012. On the other hand, steelmaker Lucchini’s Piombino-based blast furnace has remained idle almost for the whole month. Indeed, the first batches of pig iron reached the company’s basic oxygen furnace (BOF) shop only on January 28.