Japan Hot-rolled Special Steel Output to Increase by 4.4% in Oct-Dec

Japanese hot-rolled special steel production will increase by 4.4% or 230,000 tonnes to 5.4759 million tonnes in October-December from July-September, increasing by 8.3% or 421,000 tonnes from a year ago, announced by Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on Tuesday. The production will exceed record 5.246 million tonnes marked in July-September 2006. The production will increase by 4.1% or 217,000 tonnes from the demand forecast by METI at 5.259 million tonnes. Domestic demand is steady for manufacturing industries such for automobile. The export will continue to increase when high-tense steel and structural steel are more demanded for automobile and energy industries.However, market inventory of structural steel seems surplus yet. The production will increase by 68,000 tonnes for carbon steel for machine structural use in October-December from July-September and by 36,800 tonnes for alloy steel for machine structural use. Hisayoshi Ando, steel department chief of METI, said that the inventory is still surplus despite of steady auto production and that Japanese special steel makers should keep production and sales balanced with actual market demand.