Nippon Steel halts spot carbon steel sheet sales in Jan

Nippon Steel, Japan’s largest integrated mill, has decided not to sell any tonnage of carbon steel flats to the spot market in January but to focus on delivering the signed tonnage to the buyers as soon as possible as some have already been behind the schedule, a company official confirmed on December 24.

Demand for flats including hot-rolled, pickled, cold-rolled and galvanized coils and sheets have been very robust from the Japanese manufacturers, especially from auto sector with the producers on the way to gradually ramp up their output, according to the official. “Flats consumption has increased way faster than we have expected, and we are already late in