Japan’s imported flat steel stocks at key ports down 10%

By the end of September, stocks of imported carbon hot-rolled and cold-rolled coils and plates at Japan’s key ports of Tokyo and Osaka declined for the ninth consecutive month, down another 9.6% or 15,000 tonnes on month to 141,000 tonnes, according to the data released October 28 by the Japanese trading house - Hanwa Co, indicating that Japan’s flat steel demand had stayed sluggish until July.

Hanwa officials in charge of the imported flats statistics were unavailable for comment Thursday, but the stocks at the end of September was the lowest since January 2018, Mysteel Global understood from the available data. Hanwa is the only company in Japan that tracks the imported steel stocks at the Japanese port, which many