Global steel production fell 4.6% year on year in November, extending the soft patch in world output. Lower crude steel runs feed directly into demand for ferro alloys, iron ore and coking coal, so a decline of this size is felt across the entire input chain from mine to furnace. India has been the notable exception to weak global production, and that divergence is shaping trade flows: origins that once shipped comfortably into global demand are now competing harder for the buyers that remain, India's mills among them.