Marubeni-Itochu Steel to Streamline Japan Coil Centers

Japanese major steel trading firm, Marubeni-Itochu Steel announced on Tuesday the firm improves management of domestic 3 coil center subsidiaries in Osaka, Saitama and Fukuoka for better efficiency. The firm renames the subsidiaries on April 1 to encourage further cooperation as group companies. Through the cooperation, the firm expects lower cost along with better utilization of human resources, management knowhow and purchasing power for the operations.

The firm will study options to add another subsidiary in Miyagi to the integrated management group. The firm improves the processing and delivery service for the users to contribute to steel supply chain with better efficiency from the makers to users.

Japanese flat rolled steel users are shifting plants to offshore countries in order to improve the competitiveness under the historical high yen rate. Domestic coil center industry would have to seek further consolidation to reduce overcapacity of the processing service.

Japanese major steel trading firm, Metal One launched new coil center holding company to integrate 2 coil centers in 2010. Nippon Steel Trading and Mitsui & Co. combined their coil center businesses in October. Japanese major trading firms have reshuffled coil centers to meet shrinking domestic market. Japanese other coil centers have still room to consolidate when other many coil centers remain in the market despite of the smaller demand.