Japan Major Shipbuilders’ Steel Use to Drop by 2.1% in F2010

Japanese 20 shipbuilders purchase 4.428 million tonnes of steel products in fiscal 2010 starting April, according to Shipbuilders’ Association of Japan. The purchase volume or consumption decreases by 2.1% from fiscal 2009 after the volume decreases by 2.2% to 4.524 million tonnes in fiscal 2009 from fiscal 2008. The shipbuilders’ operation slows down while they keep around 3 years of order backlog mainly due to delivery delay and schedule adjustment under slow economy.

The shipbuilders keep firm operation with the existing order. However, their new order receipt is expected to keep low level. With the low level new order, the operation could be slow more when the new order is estimated to be lower than estimated 4.83 million tonnes as of September 2009.

The order receipt increased by 41.0% to 855,570 gross ton in January-February from same period of 2009. However, the volume was 72.7% lower than same period of 2008. The order backlog was 53.086 million gross ton at end of February compared with 63.653 million tonnes at end of March 2009.

The shipbuilders will consume 3.79 million tonnes of plate in fiscal 2010. The consumption is 368,238 tonnes for shapes, 110,658 tonnes for steel pipe and 139,690 tonnes for steel bar.