Kobe Steel Posts 62.1% Lower Profit in F2011

Kobe Steel announced on Friday the firm’s consolidated recurring profit decreased by 62.1% to 33.7 billion yen in fiscal 2011 ended March 2012 from fiscal 2010. The profit was higher than the revised forecast in early April due to wider cost cut in steel business. The firm posted 14.6 billion yen of the recurring loss from steel business compared with 23.7 billion yen of the profit in fiscal 2010, which was the first loss in 2 years. The steel shipment decreased by 5.9% to 6.01 million tonnes and higher raw material cost reduced the margin. The firm’s total net loss was 14.2 billion yen in fiscal 2011 compared with 52.9 billion yen of the profit in fiscal 2010, which posted the loss for the first time in 3 years. The firm failed to disclose earnings forecast for fiscal 2012.

Kobe Steel’s recurring profit decreased by 55.3 billion yen in fiscal 2011 from fiscal 2010 due to negative factors of 72 billion yen from higher cost of steelmaking materials and 21.5 billion yen from inventory valuation of steel. The firm gained 36.5 billion yen from higher output and sales and 2 billion yen from cost reduction but these efforts cannot cover the negative factors.

The firm posted 18.3 billion yen of the recurring loss from steel business in January-March compared with 1.7 billion yen of the profit in a year earlier and 100 million yen of the profit in October-December 2011. The firm’s steel shipment decreased by 90,000 tonnes to 1.47 million tonnes in January-March from October-December and the price decreased by 8,900 yen to 84,000 yen per tonne while raw steel output decreased by 10,000 tonnes to 1.76 million tonnes.

The firm expects severe business condition under higher yen exchange rate for fiscal 2012 while the firm is still uncertain for raw materials cost and steel selling price. The firm expects 1.76 million tonnes of raw steel output for April-June and higher output for July-September.