Japan’s crude steel production in Oct’21 increased by 14.3% y-o-y to 8.224 million tonnes (mn t), surpassing the previous year’s figures for eight consecutive months, as per Japan Iron and Steel Federation data released on 22 Nov’21, SteelDaily reports.
With steel demand the recovery, both blast furnace and electric furnace manufacturers continued production at higher capacity utilisation rates.
In October, both converter and electric furnace steels increased by double digits.
Production of blast furnace converter crude steel in October was recorded at 6.01 mn t, 13.4% y-o-y and that of electric furnace steel was at 2.21 mn t, up 16.6% y-o-y, both rising for the eighth straight month.
Production of commercial grade steel and special steel were at 6.32 mn t (up 10.3%) and 1.90 mn t (up 29.6%), respectively. Special steel output increased significantly, partly because of low production volume recorded in Oct’20.
Hot-rolled Ssteel production (hot rolled steel) increased 10% y-o-y to 7.17 mn t t in Oct’21, increasing for the eighth consecutive month. Meanwhile, commercial grade steel products output increased by 10.5% to 5.61 mn t last month.
Cumulative steel production in Jan-Oct’21 was 80.36 mn t, slightly up by 17.5% compared to the same period of the previous year.
Outlook
If production levels in October continue at 265,000 t per day until the end of the year, it is expected that the production in CY’21 will be about 96.5 mn t, which will recover significantly from 83.2 mn t in the previous calendar.
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