Japan’s Nippon Steel, the world's third-largest steelmaker, has planned routine maintenances at its Hot Strip Mills at Oita and Kashima in February 2020, a company source said, for about two weeks and one week, respectively.

The maintenance may affect allocation for HRC export volumes for February shipment by 30-40% compared to the average month volume, even as Nippon tries to balance volumes from January production, he said.

“We are considering how much we’ll lift up our [HRC] offer price for it compared to the previous month, given our tight allocation for HRC export due to maintenances for 2 main factories,” a source at Nippon Steel confirmed Tuesday.

The mill had previously undertaken maintenance for three days at its Kashima works in mid-August, and 11 days at its Oita works in early-September, and the same is undertaken once every six months.

For the April-September, Nippon Steel produced 20.22 million mt of crude steel, down 1.4% on the year.