The world’s leading steel maker ArcelorMittal said Wednesday Shipments fell 6 percent to 16.0 million tones due to weak demand in commodities in the global industrial downturn.

It made $1.1 billion net loss in the first quarter due to exceptional charges and writedowns of $1.2 billion. And revenue fell 32 percent to $15.1 billion from $29.8 million a year ago.

Ebitda for the first quarter fell 82 percent to $883 million in-line with $0.9. And expects second quarter earnings would increase of $1.2 to $1.5 billion.

Strong measures have been taken to reduce our cost considerably and liquidity remains healthy with an extended debt maturity profile, ArcelorMittal Chairman and CEO L N Mittal said, although it’s inevitable, the market conditions remain challenging.

As of March 31, it has $2.4 billion in cash and had $26.7 billion of net debt.

It also plans to increase its cost reductions up to $7.5 billion on an annualized basis in Q2 2009, to achieve it $2 billion target management gains.

Shares of ArcelorMittal fell 78 cents to 3.21 percent at $23.40 in the regular trading.