Japan's top steelmaker cuts full-year profit forecast
Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal said Thursday its nine-month net profit dropped 20.3 percent as it slashed its full-year profit forecast, citing the impact of plunging oil prices on a Brazilian unit.
The Tokyo-based company, one of the world's biggest steelmakers, said its earnings for the April to December period came in at 153.6 billion yen ($1.3 billion), while sales rose 3.6 percent to 4.18 trillion yen.
Nippon Steel blamed part of the profit slump on a 68.6 billion yen extraordinary loss that it took due to an unexpected slowdown at its seamless pipe maker Vallourec & Sumitomo Tubos do Brasil (VSB), which supplies the oil and gas market. "The recent rapid decline in oil prices is expected to impair the business environment surrounding the oil and gas related markets and future profits of VSB," the company said in a statement.
Nippon Steel also cut its net profit forecast for the fiscal year to March to 180 billion yen, from an earlier estimate of 250 billion yen.
Comments