China Steel Corporation (CSC), Taiwan’s top steel producer headquartered in Kaohsiung, South Taiwan, posted its carbon steel sales down 8.5% Y-o-Y to 10.3 MnT in CY19, while its pre-tax profit plunged by 60% on year, according to the company’s latest release on January 30.
Among CSC’s total carbon steel sales for 2019, domestic market took 68%, which was two percentage points lower than the average 70% for 2018, though it was still largely in CSC’s normal domestic sales range of 68-72% for most of the year.
The declines were mainly because of the weakening demand both in Taiwan and the overseas market amid a slow-down in the global economic growth amid the U.S.-China trade friction throughout 2019, and steel mills including those in Taiwan have been forced to lower their steel prices, and at the same time steel mills’ production costs rose because of price surge in iron ore and later on in scrap, Mysteel Global understands.
For 2019, CSC’s total pre-tax profit, therefore, slid to TWD 12.8 billion ($422 million) as against TWD 31.9 billion for 2018, and the company had been into lossmaking for the last two months of last year with the December losses amounting to over TWD 1 billion, or steeper than the losses of TWD 294 million for last November, Mysteel Global noted from CSC’s monthly reports.
In December, however, CSC’s carbon steel sales volume rose by 6.3% or 52,662 MT on month to 882,824 MT, or a new high since the 883,690 MT for last August, according to CSC’s data.
This article has been published under an article exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and SteelMint.
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