Japan Electric Furnace Crude Steel Output Drops by 35% in 2009

Crude steel output by Japanese electric furnace steel makers totaled 19.197 million tonnes in 2009, which lowered by 34.9% from 2008 and represented below 20 million tonnes for the first time in 32 years. The output by common steel makers decreased by 32.9% to 14.379 million tonnes and the output by special steel makers decreased by 40.4% to 4.818 million tonnes.

Electric special steel makers have reduced their productions by 60-70% since the beginning of 2009 compared with 2008 while the outputs recovered to 3% year-to-year minus level in December 2009. On the other hand, electric common steel makers have reduced their productions by 40-50% since the beginning of 2009 and continued the output reductions by 20-30% even in the second half of 2009.

In December 2009, crude steel production by Japanese electric furnaces decreased by 6.8% to 1.695 million tonnes compared with November 2009 while increased by 7.3% compared with a year earlier. The volume had sustained 1.7-1.8 million tonnes per month since August but turned below 1.7 million tonnes in December due to the non-demand season. The volume was higher than 1.57 million tonnes in December 2008 because steel makers significantly decreased their outputs in late 2008 due to global economic downturn.

Electric common steel production was 1.131 million tonnes in December 2009, down by 10% from November and down by 4.4% from a year earlier. Electric special steel production was 559,263 tonnes, down by 1.7% month-to-month while up by about 1.4 times year-to-year.

The output of common steel small bar was 590,741 tonnes in December, down by 15.3% month-to-month while up by 0.8% year-to-year. H-beam production was 230,156 tonnes, down by 6.1% month-to-month while up by 2.7% year-to-year. Small-middle size shape steel output was 68,183 tonnes, down by 7.5% month-to-month while up by 9.2% year-to-year.