Slower Japan H-Beam Demand Recovery in F2011

Japanese H-beam demand increases by around 2% to around 2.65 million tonnes excluding products with fixed outer dimension for fiscal 2011 started in April from fiscal 2010, according to Japanese integrated steel maker source. The demand is around 5% lower than outlook as of the beginning of the year when the maker revised the outlook with negative impact by the major earthquake. The construction demand recovers in the course of the recovery from the bottom after Lehman Shock while some of the demand decreases than expected due to delay of the schedule. The demand would increase for redevelopment of the quake damaged area in and after fiscal 2012.

The integrated steel maker source sees the H-beam demand increases to around 1.35 million tonnes for second half of fiscal 2011 when the building activity would normalize while the demand is around 1.3 million tonnes in the first half.

The source sees Japanese steel demand is slightly more than 4.2 million tonnes for steel structured building in fiscal 2011, which is around 250,000 tonnes lower than previous outlook before the quake. The source expects the demand is slightly more than 2 million tonnes for the first half and around 2.2 million tonnes for the second half. The building steel demand apparently shifts to the second half or later when the developers hold the projects in April-June.

Japanese construction projects are increasing compared with the very slow situation during the global economy recession in and after 2008. The integrated steel source expects the large scale project lifts the steel demand in and after autumn 2011. However, the demand could be still slow for rural parts of Japan except for the quake damaged area due to slow construction activity.

Domestic H-beam demand peaked at around 6.9 million tonnes in fiscal 1990. The demand decreased after bubble economy burst hitting around 3.3 million tonnes in fiscal 2002. The demand increased to around 4.1 million tonnes in fiscal 2006 due to recovery in economy. However, the demand again decreased to slightly less than 2.6 million tonnes in fiscal 2009 from around 3.6 million tonnes in fiscal 2008. The demand in fiscal 2010 was slightly more than 2.6 million tonnes.