Tokyo Steel Expands Steel Products Export

Tokyo Steel, Japanese largest electric furnace maker increase the sales to export mainly for automobile. Chinese, Indian and Middle-Eastern importers are offering the purchase of Tokyo Steel’s pickling sheet. H-beam and hot rolled coil export price is increasing rapidly. The firm is building up the sales to overseas, which contracted the export of pickling sheet for sample at 1,500 tonnes to China for the shipping in May and is accepting the offer of pickling sheet from Thailand in May shipping. The firm will export it in earnest after sample shipping and price negotiation.

The firm will ship steel sheet to automobile component makers without Japanese component makers. Mr. Naoto Ohori, the firm’s managing director said that the firm will export if overseas importers offer.

The firm strengthens marketing strategies in foreign countries for hot coil and H-beam. The firm accepted the order of H-beam export price at FOB US$ 810 per tonne and hot rolled coil at US$ 750 to South Korea for June shipping in last week, which raised the price by nearly US$ 60 from the end of March. The firm is raising the offer price by US$ 20-30 to US$ 830 for H-beam and US$ 780 for hot rolled coil.

Tokyo Steel’s H-beam output was below 30,000 tonnes in March for the first time in 31 years. Mr. Ohori said the output decreased when the firm got behind low-priced sales. The firm’s output of H-beam is expected to increase to 40,000 tonnes in April. The output is expected to increase to 80,000 tonnes for hot rolled coil in April and 25,000 tonnes for plate. Tahara plant, the firm’s newest works is expected to produce 6,000 tonnes of hot coil in April.