Japan’s steel exports fall by 13% y-o-y in Jan ’21 on higher domestic sales

Japan’s exports of steel in all grades and forms declined by 13.3% on year to about 2.43 million tonnes for January, or the ninth month in a row with on-year drops, according to the preliminary data released by Japan’s Ministry of Finance on February 17, which was mainly due to the domestic steel mills’ preference for domestic sales over exports when supply was tight, Mysteel Global understood.

Japan’s January steel exports was also down 3.4% on month, and the Asian customers remained the top buyers, accounting for 1.96 million tonnes, which was down 6% on year but slightly up 0.9% on month.

Among the exports to Asia, the volume to the ASEAN 6 countries rose both on year and on month, mainly as the Japanese integrated mills such as Nippon Steel lift their hot-rolled coils exports to their plants including cold-rolling and galvanizing mills in the ASEAN region to fulfil the growing need for such steel products, according to the Japanese traders.

“Japan’s steel exports in January were mostly booked around November, when two blast furnaces were restarted in January in response to the growing demand from the domestic end-users,” a trader in Tokyo said.

“However, another blast furnace was restarted in January, which may enable the Japanese steel mills to allocate more steel for exports in the coming months if the hot-rolling and other rolling mills can catch up with the pace,” he added.

In January, Japan’s steel exports to China eased, though market sources noted that inquiries from the Chinese customers had remained very active, so it was more due to the supply stretch than demand.

“If the Japanese mills had had more tonnage, their exports to China would have increased, but they did not so they had to be selective,” a second trader shared.

Last month, Japan’s imports of all kinds of steel totalled 526,546 tonnes, down 18.7% on year and 4.9% lower on month, or recording 13th month with an on-year decline, according to the preliminary data.

“Japan’s domestic demand is on the recovery but the country has not seen the need to import in large volumes as supplements,” the second trader commented.

The Japan Iron & Steel Federation will release the detailed steel exports and imports data by product on February 26.