Japan 5 Major Makers’ Crude Steel Output Totals 7MT in April

Crude steel production by Japanese 5 integrated steel makers totaled 6.979 million tonnes in April, increasing by 64.5% from a year earlier while decreasing by 5.1% from a month earlier. In April 2009, the makers were in wide-range output reductions in accordance with global steel demand decline after Lehman Shock. The current production volume is about 90% of the recent peak of 2 years ago. The averaged daily output was 232,633 tonnes in April, slightly down from the previous month.

Nippon Steel’s crude steel production increased by 73% to 2.513 million tonnes in April from a year earlier. Oita works’ blast furnace was continuously in trouble but the output volume was covered by the other works. The production increased by 62% to 2.37 million tonnes at JFE Steel, by 51.2% to 1.128 million tonnes at Sumitomo Metal Industries, by 72.8% to 634,000 tonnes at Kobe Steel and by 56.8% to 334,000 tonnes at Nisshin Steel.

The 5 steels’ pig iron production totaled 6.682 million tonnes in April, increasing by 52.4% from a year earlier while decreasing by 4.7% from a month earlier. The averaged daily production was 222,733 tonnes, slightly lower than 226,225 tonnes in March.