Nippon Steel & Sumikin Stainless Steel Corporation (NSSC) announced on Friday the firm posted consolidated recurring loss at 10.567 billion yen for April-December 2011 against the loss of 1.913 billion yen in same period of fiscal 2010 ended in March 2011. Inventory evaluation loss increased along raw material price down. Lower export sales ratio also worsened profitability under historically strong yen trend. The nine-month consolidated net sales decreased by 8.4% to 174.867 billion yen year-on-year. Non-consolidated steel shipment decreased by 12.1% to 586,000 tonnes. The unit price surged by 11,000 yen to 292,000 yen per tonne.
For three months of October-December 2011, consolidated recurring loss was 4.385 billion yen. Non-consolidated steel shipment decreased by 10.8% to 190,000 tonnes and the unit price decreased by 8,000 yen per tonne compared with the same period of fiscal 2010. NSSC explained actual profitability hasn’t worsened so much but inventory evaluating loss expanded compared with April-September. The firm continues cost reducing measures and tries to increase sales of high value added products including Austenitic-Ferritic (Duplex) steels and new chrome series stainless steel FW series containing much less rare metal.