Japan 5 Major Steels’ Raw Steel Output Drops by 6.2% in February

Japanese 5 major steel makers’ raw steel output decreased by 6.2% to 6.467 million tonnes in February from a year earlier. The production decreased for 6 months in a row due to slow Asian demand. The demand was better than December 2011 and January when the production was more than 10% lower than a year earlier. The daily output increased by 4.2% to 223,000 tonnes from January.

With the pace of the production, the output would be around 81 million tonnes in fiscal 2011 ending March 2012, which is around 5 million tonnes lower than 86.11 million tonnes in fiscal 2010.

Nippon Steel’s production decreased by 8.9% to 2.406 million tonnes in February from a year earlier. JFE Steel’s production decreased by 7.6% to 2.139 million tonnes. The output decreased by 3.2% to 1.067 million tonnes for Sumitomo Metal Industries while the output increased by 2.2% to 556,000 tonnes for Kobe Steel and by 2.4% to 298,000 tonnes for Nisshin Steel.

The 5 makers’ pig iron output decreased by 2.8% to 6.388 million tonnes in February from a year earlier. The daily output increased by 3.9% to 220,300 tonnes from January.