Japan’s flat steel stocks down 4% on month at end-June

Stocks of hot-rolled, cold-rolled and coated coils and sheets at Japanese mills, coil centres and distributors at the end of June were down 3.6% on month or by 160,000 tonnes to about 4.3 million tonnes, according to the latest data compiled by Nippon Steel published on August 4. Efforts by steelmakers to trim output, plus the restart of operations by manufacturers, helped the stocks to decrease, a company official explained.

Business activity across Japan in May had been constrained by the government’s declaration of a state of emergency to combat the COVID-19 outbreak, the Nippon Steel official said, but steel demand from manufacturers gradually picked up from end-May after the emergency was lifted and end users could begin receiving materials. “At the same