Chinese Tin Plate Demand Expected to Increase to 3MT in 2010

Chinese tin plate demand is expected to increase by 7-8% to 2.9-3.0 million tonnes in 2010 against 2009, according to Nippon Steel. The demand is forecasted to increase by 5-6% to around 420,000 tonnes in India and by 2-3% to 5-6 million tonnes in all Asia. The demand would keep uptrend along economic growth mainly in China and India.

In China, 1 million tonnes of the demand seems to owe to local makers’ productions of general hot coils by cold rolling and annealing processes, not for black plates. Local tinned sheet is used for general cans, whose price tends to lower along hot coil’s price down and impacts other tin plate prices.

Some steel makers in South Korea and Taiwan purchase hot coils for black tin plates. Chinese makers only use general hot coil for tinned sheets. Nippon Steel refrains from price competition with Chinese local makers and follows the demand for high grade steels.

In 2009, Chinese tin plate demand was 2.7-2.8 million tonnes. The demand was 600,000 tonnes in Thailand, 400,000 tonnes in India, 200,000-250,000 tonnes in Philippine and 160,000-180,000 tonnes in Indonesia, according to Nippon Steel. Chinese and Indian demand is expanding. The demand is also expected to keep uptrend in Thailand for food cans in 2010.

Nippon Steel plans to increase production capacity of PT Latinusa, Nippon Steel’s subsidiary and Indonesian only tin plate maker, to 160,000 tonnes per year from current 130,000 tonnes to supply tin plate to Indonesian market.