POSCO Raises Hot Band Export Price to Japan

POSCO increased the export price of hot rolled coil and pickling steel by 3,000-5,000 yen per tonne for Japan for July-September shipment. The firm will decide the price for cold rolled steel and galvanizing steel after the delayed delivery improves. The firm is expected to reduce the export volume when the firm plans maintenance outage for rolling processes at Gwangyang works in second half of the year after the firm finished major maintenance from blast furnace to rolling processes at Pohang works in the first half. POSCO tries to shift to higher valued products. The firm planned to reduce hot coil output by 990,000 tonnes in the first half from same period of 2005 due to the maintenance outage including 55 days repair for no.2 hot strip mill to expand the output capacity by annual 400,000 tonnes at Pohang. The firm reduced the hot coil output by several tens of thousands tonnes compared with the plan due to delay of start up of no.2 hot strip mill and trouble of no.1 hot strip mill at Pohang. The firm reduced the hot coil sales by 6.6% to 2.12 million tonnes for April-June and by 7.1% to 4.23 million tonnes for the first half from same period of 2005. The delivery to Japan is delayed for more than a month. Pohang’s no.1 and 2 hot strip mills resumed full capacity operations. The firm plans to increase the hot coil output by 470,000 tonnes in the second half from first half. However, the firm plans maintenance outage at Gwangyang in September. The firm plans 7 days maintenance outage at no.1 hot strip mill reducing the output by 120,000 tonnes. The firm plans 8 days outage at no.2 pickling line to reduce the output by 150,000 tonnes while the 8 days outage at no.3 cold rolling mill reduces the output by 30,000 tonnes.