Nippon Steel increased steel production by 1% q/q in Q1 FY2023/2024

Japanese steel corporation Nippon Steel increased non-consolidated steel production by 1% q/q in the first quarter of the 2023/2024 financial year (April-June) – up to 8.68 million tons. This is stated in the company’s financial report, informs SteelMint.

In annual terms, production remained stable – in the first quarter of the previous fiscal year, this figure was 8.69 million tons.

The volume of non-consolidated steel supplies increased by 3% q/q – up to 8.07 million tons. Compared to the same period of the 2022/2023 financial year, supplies fell by 1%.

Nippon Steel’s consolidated business profit for the April-June period was 48.7 billion yen ($1.76 billion), compared with 338.8 billion yen ($2.39 billion) in the first quarter of the 2022/2023 fiscal year. The company expects profit for the current fiscal year to reach 840 billion yen ($5.92 billion) or more, beating a previous forecast of 40 billion yen ($0.28 billion) and hitting a new record high, barring a significant decline in the domestic market and foreign demand for steel.

According to Nippon Steel, the Japanese economy is slowly recovering thanks to inbound demand and consumption of services. The construction and manufacturing sectors still remain weak compared to the previous year. The company expects some recovery in the automotive industry due to improved supply chains, but shipbuilding, industrial equipment and other steel-consuming sectors remain weak due to subdued external demand.

Nippon Steel will also closely monitor future global economic trends, China’s economic recovery and its policy to reduce steelmaking.

As GMK Center reported earlier, Nippon Steel in the 2023/2024 financial year plans to produce approximately 35 million tons of steel and predicts the supply of steel products at the level of about 32 million tons. In the 2022/2023 fiscal year (ended March 31), the company, according to its report, reduced the volume of steel production by 11.4% in annual terms – to 34.25 million tons. The supply of steel products in this period fell by 11.5% year-on-year – to 31.47 million tons.