Tokyo Kotetsu to Halve Angle and Channel Output in 2H

Tokyo Kotetsu, Japanese major angle steel maker, plans to reduce crude steel output by 50% and the salable products, angles, channels and billets by 40% in the second half of fiscal 2008 ending March 2009 compared with the same period of fiscal 2007 to follow the demand slowdown in domestic and overseas markets. Especially, the firm will stop billet export during 2H when overseas market such as South Korea or Taiwan keeps slow. The firm exported billets at 34,600 tonnes in 1H of F2008.

The firm will decrease angle and channel output by 25% in 2H compared with 1H at 95,000 tonnes when domestic demand from building construction is dropping. The firm’s average angle and channel selling price surged by 27,764 yen to 102,000 yen per tonne in 1H from a year earlier while the billet price increased by 35,795 yen to 93,000 yen per tonne.

The firm will invest approximately 5 billion yen for 3 years until fiscal 2010. The firm invested about 2 billion yen in fiscal 2008 to renew a transformer, a flicker and a dust collector for steel making until September. The firm will invest 1.05 billion yen to refine a rolling mill in fiscal 2009 and 2 billion yen for a heat furnace and a billet shearing facility in fiscal 2010.