By  Paul Ploumis 13 Aug 2015  Last updated at  05:01:24 GMT

NEW DELHI (Scrap Monster): India’s Joint Plant Commission (JPC) has released preliminary steel estimates for the second quarter of 2015.

As per JPC data, the country’s finished steel consumption increased during the three-month period from April to May this year. The consumption totaled 20.1 million tons during the quarter, significantly higher by 7.1% when compared with the corresponding quarter last year. The Indian finished steel consumption had totaled 18.8 million tons during Q2 2014. The consumption during the month of June ’15 alone totaled 7.17 million tons, dropping by over 3% year-on-year.

The country’s finished steel output during April-June ’15 quarter of the year totaled 23.7 million tons, rising by 2.8% year-on-year. Among steel producers, state-owned Steel Authority of India (SAIL) and Tata Steel reported increased quarterly production. SAIL’s finished steel output jumped higher by 4.6% to 2.53 million tons. Tata Steel’s output increased marginally by 0.3% over the previous year to 2.18 million tons. On the other hand, Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL) recorded 4.2% yearly drop in production during the quarter. RINL’s finished steel output totaled 634,000 tons during April-June quarter of 2015.

Meantime, the country, for the second time during the current year, has increased tariffs on steel imports, in a move to protect domestic steel sector by preventing cheap imports from China. The import tariff rate of flat steel products for automotive industry has been hiked from 10% to 12.5%. Also, imports of long steel products for construction industry will now have a tariff of 10% in place of earlier 7.5%.

According to government statistics, China continues to remain as the largest steel supplier to India, followed by Japan and South Korea. The steel imports from China had accounted for 36% of the total steel imports by the country during 2014. The latest data shows that Chinese steel exports to India surged higher by 62% year-on-year during April this year.