Japan Accumulated Steel Increases by 2.53Mt in F2010

Japanese accumulated steel volume increased by 2.539 million tonnes to 1.321 billion tonnes at the end of fiscal 2010 ended in March 2011 from fiscal 2009, according to Japan Ferrous Raw Materials Association. The volume increased for the first time in 2 years when Japanese steel output increased.

The association calculated the accumulated volume by subtracting net steel export including indirect trade and steel makers’ ferrous scrap purchase volume from market from Japanese raw steel output. The association estimated the increasing factor is total 13.251 million tonnes in fiscal 2010 from fiscal 2009 when the raw steel output increased by 11.874 million tonnes to 98.658 million tonnes and the import increased by 1.377 million tonnes to 7.72 million tonnes.

The association estimated the decreasing factor is total 10.417 million tonnes in fiscal 2010 from fiscal 2009 when the steel export including indirect export increased 4.392 million tonnes to 72.041 million tonnes and ferrous scrap consumption increased by 6.025 million tonnes to 31.799 million tonnes.

The accumulated steel volume decreased by 300,000 tonnes at the end of fiscal 2009 from fiscal 2008 but the volume increased in fiscal 2010 due to recovery in steel output. However, the increase of the volume got smaller compared since the peak of 44.83 million tonnes increase in fiscal 1990. The increase in fiscal 2010 was small as the figure in fiscal 1954.