Nippon Steel Posts 21% Higher Recurring Profit in April-June

Nippon Steel announced on Monday the consolidated recurring profit increased by 20.8% to 148.6 billion yen with 18.3% higher sales at 1.116 trillion yen of sales in April-June from same period of 2006. The executive vice president Kiichiroh Masuda said the results are in line with the target of 600 billion yen of annual recurring profit for the year to March 2008. The steel business posted 22 billion yen of higher recurring profit for April-June from same period of 2006 when the unit gained 30 billion yen from higher selling price, 10 billion yen from 300,000 tonnes of higher shipment and 12 billion yen from cost cutting while the unit experienced 30 billion yen of higher cost for raw materials. The raw steel output increased by 290,000 tonnes to 7.99 million tonnes for the parent company and by 270,000 tonnes to 8.72 million tonnes for the group in April-June from same period of 2006. The parent company’s shipment increased by 300,000 tonnes to 7.89 million tonnes while the averaged steel selling price increased by 6,700 yen to 78,300 yen per tonne. Mr. Masuda said the raw materials cost increases by 100 billion yen for the year to March 2008 compared with previous year though the firm estimated 80 billion yen of cost up before while the domestic contract users accepted the price hike. He said the firm tries to improve the selling price more to cover the higher cost.