Nippon Steel’s Yawata Works to Make High-Value Products More

Nippon Steel’s Yawata works tries to improve the profitability by increasing the high-valued steel products under the new mid-term plan starting April 2006 though the high-valued products represent already 75% of the production including electrical steel, automotive sheet and heavy rail. Mr. Yasuo Hamamoto who is top management of the works and director of Nippon Steel said the works will expand the high-valued products output while it tries to reduce raw materials cost.Mr. Hamamoto said the works’ output will decrease slightly in fiscal 2005 ending March 2006 due to the output reduction to reduce inventory from the 4.2 million tonnes of steel products and 3.6 million tonnes of pig iron in fiscal 2004. He said the works will secure record profit even the 15,000 yen per tonne of higher raw materials cost after the works kept reducing cost and increasing high-valued products in years.Mr. Hamamoto said the works will increase the high-valued products output by around 2 million tonnes per year while it reduces commodity grade by around 1 million tonnes under the nest mid-term plan. He tries to improve the development ability for the high-valued products along with the higher production capacity. He also tries to reduce raw materials cost by using lower-grade iron ore and materials. He considers expanding output capacity for electrical steel to meet strong demand. He said the works will expend more for cost cutting, launching new products and refreshing old facilities.