Nisshin Steel Posts Recurring Loss 2 Fiscal Years

Nisshin Steel posted 53.7 billion yen of consolidated recurring loss for fiscal 2009 ended March 2010, which represented loss for 2 years in a row, announced on Wednesday. The loss was 12.3 billion yen in fiscal 2008 and the firm expected 51.0 billion yen for fiscal 2009 as of February.

Nisshin Steel posted 11.4 billion yen of consolidated recurring profit in second half of fiscal 2009. However, the profit decreased to 5.2 billion yen in January-March 2010 from 6.2 billion yen in October-December 2009.

The averaged selling price of steel products declined by 33,000 yen to 105,000 yen per tonne in fiscal 2009 from fiscal 2008. The sales volume declined by 4.0% to 3.34 million tonnes while the stainless products sales increased by 4.3% to 480,000 tonnes.

The firm expects full capacity operation at 3.4 million tonnes for carbon steel for fiscal 2010. The firm plans to produce just less than 600,000 tonnes of stainless steel, which represents 90% of the peak level.