Japan Hot Rolled Special Steel Output to Rise by 1% in January-March

Japanese special steel hot rolled products output will increase by 55,000 tonnes or 1% to 5.564 million tonnes in January-March from same period of 2007, according to Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. The output is 169,000 tonnes or 3.1% higher than October-December and 0.1% higher than 5.557 million tonnes of demand in January-March, which was estimated by METI in December. The products quarterly output for domestic market reaches 4 million tonnes for 2 quarters in a row. The high tensile steel output for export increases by 20% from October-December. The output for export increases for 9 items, which is mainly for automotive applications, when automakers expand the offshore output. The total output increases in January-March for 2 quarters in a row both from same period of 2007 and October-December. The output will increases to 4.021 million tonnes for domestic market in January-March, which is 2.2% or 87,000 tonnes higher than same period of 2007 and 15,000 or 0.4% higher than October-December. The output for export is 1.543 million tonnes, which is 32,000 tonnes or 2% lower than same period of 2007 and 154,000 tonnes or 11.1% higher than October-December. The quarterly output for domestic market increases for 5 items including tool steel, mechanical structure carbon steel, bearing steel, stainless steel and free cutting steel compared with October-December. The stainless steel output increases both for long and flat products. The quarterly output for export increases by 17.1% for high tensile steel from October-December. The output increases by 14.4% for bearing steel, by 13.2% for spring steel and by 12.9% for mechanical structure carbon steel. The stainless steel output increases for long products while the flat steel output decreases.