Japanese steel orders rise on domestic recovery
Japanese steel mills reported total orders up in December. This happened as domestic orders were strong compared to a year earlier despite a slight dip from November, according to data published by the Japan Iron and Steel Federation (Jisf). Export orders meanwhile recovered from November but remained down year-on-year, Kallanish notes.
December’s grand total for orders was up 3.1% month-on-month and 4.8% y-o-y in December to 6.16 million tonnes, Jisf reports. Domestic orders at reporting companies were actually down -1.2% from November at 3.87mt, but were still up 9.5% y-o-y. Export orders meanwhile were down -3% y-o-y but up 10.9% y-o-y.
Japanese steel orders in the current quarter could struggle as end users resist price hikes by Japanese mills, and a fire at Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal Corporation’s Oita plant reduces output. Japanese mills have little choice but to hike prices however to compensate for the increase in their quarterly contract prices for iron ore and coking coal.
Over the first three quarters of the financial year ending March 2017, the grand total was up 1.7% y-o-y at 52.98mt. Domestic orders rose by 3% to 32.85mt and export orders fell by -0.7% to 19.47mt. Improving demand over the last quarter of the year from both construction and manufacturing helped boost orders however. The construction sector saw orders over April-December increase 3.6% to 8.58mt, while manufacturing orders were up 2.1% to 14.37mt. While construction orders were strong y-o-y in December, they fell sharply by -8.5% from November to 988,000t, Jisf notes.
Source: Kallanish.com