Japan: Flat steel inventories down slightly in end-Oct'22

Inventories of key flat-rolled carbon steel products held by Japanese steel producers, coil centres and distributors till the end of October, 2022 totalled 4.39 million tonnes (mnt), down by 1% or 31,000 tonnes (t) from end-September and a decrease of 140,000 t y-o-y.

This is due to supply chain issues and low demand from the construction, industrial machinery, electrical machinery and the automotive sectors. Moreover, manufacturers believe that it will continue to decline further.

In addition, the inventory ratio in October was 2.97 up from September (2.94) out of which hot-rolled was 3.48 (against 3.31 in the previous month), cold-rolled was 3.44 (versus 3.16 in the preceding month), and coated was 2.18 (compared to 2.34 in September).

Japan's crude steel production in October was 7.3 mnt, up 2.7% from 7.1 mnt in September. Despite a slight improvement compared with September, output in October fell by 10.6% on the year to 7.35 mnt.

Note: This article has been written in accordance with an article exchange agreement between Japan Metal Daily and SteelMint.