The Benefit Of 5 Major Steel Makers to Become Upgraded
Nippon Steel, Sumitomo Metal, Kobe Steel, Nisshin Steel, major steel makers in Japan, on Tuesday announced thier six months closing of account forecast or account settlement forecast fiscal year ending March 2004. JFE Holdings announced last week, the settlement forecast of the major 5 makers got together.

They got the robust export for Asia and the improvement of the price for domestic or export. Consequently, their benefit was upgraded. For the current profits of consolidation in six months closing of account forecast, Nippon Steel anticipated increasing to 60 billion yen by 4.7 times over the same term in the year before, JFE anticipated increasing to 78 billion yen by 2.9 times, Sumitomo anticipated increasing to 22 billion yen by 12%, Kobe anticipated increasing to 14 billion yen by 40%, Nisshin anticipated increasing to 13 billion yen up by 17 billion yen.

For the current profits of consolidation for the whole financial year, Nippon Steel anticipated increasing to 170 billion yen by 2.4 times over the same term in the year before, JFE anticipated increasing to 200 billion yen by 1.9 times, Sumitomo anticipated increasing to 55 billion yen by 33%, Kobe anticipated increasing to 43 billion yen by 21%, Nisshin anticipated increasing to 23 billion yen by 3.6 times.
But Nippon Steel did not include the affect of the coke oven gas holder accident in forecast. The firm did a trial calculation in the affect at MAX 30 billion yen by shipping decreasing, the recovery cost of the equipment or the deterioration of the operation.

For midterm dividend, Nisshin is going to carry out 2 yen per one share for the first time in 5 years, others passed up.

The amount of the crude steel production in the first half of the fiscal 2003, Nippon Steel sees about 15 million tones, JFE sees about 13.4 million tonnes, Sumitomo sees about 6.3 million tonnes, Kobe sees about 3.59 million tonnes, Nisshin sees about 2 million tonnes.

The average sales price of the steel products in the first half of fiscal 2003, Nippon Steel sees increasing to 52,000 yen per tonnes by 800 yen over the second half of last year, JFE sees increasing to 50,200 yen by 2,700 yen, Sumitomo sees increasing to 67,000 yen by 1,300 yen, Kobe sees increasing to 47,000 yen by 2,000 yen, Nisshin sees increasing to 82,000 yen by 4,000 yen.