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JFE Steel, Japan’s second largest integrated steelmaker, has decided to lift its entire catalogue of products by over Yen 13,000/t ($121/t) for April sales to all domestic and overseas customers, spot and long-term contract buyers, the Tokyo-based steelmaker has announced. The across-the-board increase is to offset higher iron ore and coal prices, a company official confirmed on March 4.
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Japanese steel product prices will continue strengthening for the foreseeable future because of rising raw material prices and tight supplies of finished steel, according to Shinichi Nakamura, chairman of the Tekko Sangyo Kondankai, a monthly meeting of Japanese steel industry directors convened to discuss market trends.
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Inner Mongolia in North China, now the country’s second-largest coal mining region after Shanxi in North China too and with the most competitive power charges, mulls blocking any new industrial projects including steel, coke, ferroalloys, non-ultra-high electrode graphite and aluminium starting 2021, aiming to rein in on the region’s power consumption mainly by such industrial plants, according to a draft by its Development and Reform Committee.
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H-beam prices in Japan’s retail market have risen by Yen 2,000/tonne ($19/t) over the past week as dealers try again to pass along higher mill prices to their customers. The traders are receiving help in their push from the rebound in scrap prices, according to market sources in Tokyo and Osaka.
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Japan’s eight major automakers posted a 4.5% on-year drop in January output at both the domestic and overseas plants to about 2.11 million units, according to the data released by automakers until February 26, and the decline was not about auto demand but the worldwide shortage of semi-conductors, according to market sources.
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China’s Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for the manufacturing industry slid for the third month in February, easing by 0.7 basis point on month to 50.6, with the country’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) attributing the on-month decline mainly to the Chinese New Year (CNY) holiday over February 11-17. Despite the dip, the national PMI has nonetheless remained in the expansion zone for the twelfth month, according to Bureau’s latest release on February 28.
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Japan’s Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for its manufacturing industry for February gained 1.6 basis points on month to reach 51.4, returning to expansion for the first time since December and indicating that Japanese manufacturers are gradually emerging from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to index compiler au Jibun Bank Corporation on March 1, the February result showed the strongest improvement since December 2018. A reading over the threshold of 50 connotes expansion, Mysteel Global notes.
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Osaka Steel, Japan’s largest steel sections producer, decided to keep its list prices of sections unchanged for domestic sales in March, trying to stabilize the prices in steelmaking raw materials and other input costs, though the company is ready to raise its prices in the coming months should the input costs incline further, a company official said on February 26.
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Japan’s domestic plate prices rose Yen 2,000/tonne ($19/) on week by February 25, mainly on the list price hikes by the domestic steel producers, which have intensified the worry among the distributors, as higher prices may dampen the sales in an already stagnant market, market sources in Tokyo shared on Thursday.
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China Baowu Steel Group (Baowu), the world’s and the country’s top steel producer, has been the first in China’s steel industry to pledge realizing carbon neutral by 2050, or ten years ahead of China’s targeted timeline as a country, Chen Derong, Baowu’s chairman, disclosed in an interview with China’s media.
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After remaining flat since last October, Japanese prices of 300-series stainless cold-rolled (CR) sheet have risen by Yen 10,000/tonne ($95/t) this week, Mysteel Global has learned, and dealers are now targeting a further Yen 10,000/t hike by end of March, according to market sources.
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Toyota Motor, Japan’s largest automaker, has informed its auto components suppliers that it will keep domestic automobile production at around 12,500-13,000 units/day during March-May, and its auto steel consumption, thus, will not be affected much by the short-time stoppage at half of its 28 assembly lines in Japan after the earthquake in mid-February, industry sources in Tokyo and Nagoya of central Japan shared on February 24.
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Japan’s largest integrated mill – Nippon Steel – denied a news report by Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei), Japan’s business daily, that it has decided to suspend a blast furnace at its Kashima Area of East Nippon Works near Tokyo for a few years, though the domestic steel market sources see the likelihood.
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JFE Shoji Corporation, a trading company under Japan’s second largest integrated mill - JFE Steel group – has just commissioned its second coil processing plant at its existing coil distribution center in Hai Phong city of north Vietnam recently in February to cope with the probably growing demand for steel sheets in the ASEAN country, JFE Shoji announced on February 18.
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Japan’s exports of steel in all grades and forms declined by 13.3% on year to about 2.43 million tonnes for January, or the ninth month in a row with on-year drops, according to the preliminary data released by Japan’s Ministry of Finance on February 17, which was mainly due to the domestic steel mills’ preference for domestic sales over exports when supply was tight, Mysteel Global understood.
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Japan’s domestic carbon steel products sales totalled about 3.4 million tonnes for last December, or touching the year’s high for 2020, according to the latest data released by the Japan Iron & Steel Federation (JISF) on February 16, which was “a clear sign of pick-up in steel demand,” a JISF official commented on Wednesday.
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Home is where parents are in the Chinese culture. But for this year’s Chinese New Year celebrations, many Chinese working in cities or in other countries away from their places of birth will probably have to bear the separation from their parents for CNY for the first time this year, and all for a common reason – the COVID-19 virus. For the unluckier ones, this might even be the second time they’ll miss their annual family get-together.
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China’s sales and output of automobiles jumped by 29.5% and 34.6% respectively on year last month, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) released the latest numbers on February 9, attributing the robust performance to the remaining solid demand for vehicles and at the same time low base numbers for January 2020.
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Japan’s new vessel orders in January jumped by 62.2% on year to 1.21 million gross tonnes in 31 vessels, according to new data released by the Japan Ship Exporters’ Association (JSEA) on February 9. Though last month’s orders were also 37.4% up on the December result, a JSEA official cautioned that ship plate consumption isn’t likely to increase because the rise was probably only temporary. The Japanese yards are still slowing down their operations, he said.
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Nippon Steel, Japan’s largest integrated mill, now expects to be able to post a pre-tax profit of Yen 30 billion ($284.6 million) on a consolidated basis for fiscal 2020 (April 2020-March 2021), reversing its earlier projection of a Yen 60 billion pre-tax loss, the company announced on February 5.
