Japan Pig Iron Export Decreases by 26% in August

Japanese pig iron export decreased by 25.9% to 40,563 tonnes in August from July, which decreased for 2 consecutive months, according to Japan Iron & Steel Federation. Japanese steel makers kept high export of pig iron when their output reduction range was wider for crude steel than pig iron since last autumn. Recently crude steel output is recovering for export and manufacturing industry. Then pig iron export seemed to decrease.

Japanese 5 major integrated steel makers’ pig iron output increased by 9.7% to 6.24 million tonnes in August from July, which increased for 4 consecutive months. The 5 makers’ crude steel output increased by 9.8% to 6.594 million tonnes, which increased for 4 consecutive months and recovered to 80% of the peak level in August 2008.

Integrated steels largely reduced crude steel output from November 2008. Japanese pig iron export started to increase in January 2009 and hit record 124,953 million tonnes in June. The export decreased to 54,716 tonnes in July.

Pig iron export increased by 15 times to 534,250 tonnes for January-August. Pig iron was exported mainly to China and South Korea as an alternative material for high grade ferrous scrap. Pig iron export expanded by 336 times to 372,120 tonnes for China and by 3.1 times to 83,719 tonnes for South Korea during January-August.