Japan 5 Major Steels’ Raw Steel Output Drops by 2% in May

Japanese major 5 integrated steel makers decreased the output by 2.0% to total 7.151 million tonnes in May from a year earlier. The output decreased the share by 0.7 percentage points to 72.1% for Japanese total output due to blast furnace relining and output reduction to reduce sheet inventory. Nippon Steel’s raw steel output decreased by 6.0% to 2.632 million tonnes in May from a year earlier decreasing the share by 1.4 points to 26.5% of Japanese total. JFE Steel’s output decreased by 1.5% to 2.427 million tonnes keeping the share at 24.5%. Sumitomo Metal Industries’ raw steel output increased by 4.6% to 1.111 million tonnes in May from a year earlier increasing the share by 0.6 points to 11.2% of total output. Kobe Steel increased the output by 4.1% to 666,000 tonnes increasing the share by 0.3% points to 6.7%. Nisshin Steel reduced the output by 6.3% to 315,000 tonnes decreasing the share by 0.1 point to 3.2%.