History of Nippon Steel.
History of Nippon Steel 
Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metals Corporation (NSSMC) is the fourth largest steelmaker in the world, producing over 44 million tonnes of crude steel in 2022.
The timeline below covers the history of the firm.
- 1901: Start of steelmaking operations of Yawata Steel Works.
- 1934: Japan I&S formed from merger of several mines & works.
- 1950: Fuji Steel formed from assets of Japan Iron & Steel.
- 1970: Fuji Steel and Yawata Steel merged into Nippon Steel Corp.
- 1975: Nippon Steel becomes largest steelmaker in the world.
- 1987: Downsizing announced - closure of 5 BFs, loss of 19000 jobs.
- 1987: Start-up of I/N Tek cold rolling jv announced [with Inland].
- 1989: Formation of I/N Kote jv [Inland Steel jv, auto HDG and EGL].
- 2003: Arcelor, Baosteel and Nippon - auto steel jv formed in China.
- 2003: Consolidation of stainless units of Nippon & SMI into NSSC.
- 2006: Nippon introduces defence measures for hostile takeovers.
- 2008: ArcelorMittal expands Nippon jv: new galv line at I/N Kote.
- 2011: Tata Steel & Nippon Steel sign jv deal to build CAPL in India.
- 2011: Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Industries reveal merger plan.
- 2012: Coated steel jv signed with BlueScope Steel.
- 2012: Nippon & Sumitomo merge into Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp.
- 2013: Mozambique Gov approves start of work on Revuboe Coal Mine Project.
- 2013: Signals emphasis on merger integration & cost-cutting Q4 2013.
- 2013: NSSMC (& others) buy ThyssenKrupp Alabama steel mill.
- 2014: Announces plan for new cold heading wire plant in China.
- 2015: Acquires another 10% stake in Boggabri coalmine from Japan’s Idemitsu.
- 2016: Announces 2017 consolidation plan for Nisshin Steel.
- 2016: SSMC and Vallourec merge seamless pipe and tube business in Brazil.
- 2016: Court battle with Technint over control of Usiminas in Brazil.
- 2017: CEO of NSSMC subsidiary Usiminas dismissed 23-Mar-17.
- 2017: NSSMC reverses seemingly wrongful dismissal of Usiminas CEO.
- 2017: NSSMC completes purchase of 51% stake in Nisshin Steel.
- 2018: Acquires India's Essar Steel (together with ArcelorMittal).
- 2019: South Korean court approves NSSMC asset seizure.
- 2019: ArcelorMittal & NSSMC complete acquisition of Essar Steel.
- 2020: Announces intended 10% cut in crude steel capacity.
- 2020: Increases equity investment in Vallourec.
- 2020: Appeals South Korea court ruling on asset seizure.
- 2020: Plans doubling of steel capacity at AM/NS India by 2030 [with ArcelorMittal].
- 2020: Announces sale of I/N Tek & I/N Kote ownership stakes.
- 2021: Increases equity stake in Thailand's Siam Tinplate Co.
- 2021: Considers stoppage of one of two blast furnaces in Kashima.
- 2022: Merger planned of two Thai subsidiaries, NS-Siam United Steel and Siam Tinplate.
- 2022: Acquires two Thailand-based EAF producers of hot rolled steel sheet.
- 2023: Acquires equity and royalty interests in Elk Valley Resources Ltd.
- 2023: Closes all steel production facilities at its Setouchi Works.
- 2023: Indirectly acquires 20% interest in Elk Valley Resources.
- 2023: Wins auction for acquisition of U.S. Steel for $14.9 billion.
- 2024: Announces $66m investment in new steel processing ceentre in Mexico. .
Notes
- 1934 consolidation involved the Wanishi Iron Works, the Kamaishi Mines, Mitsubishi Iron, Kyusyu Steel, Tokyo Steel and other assets.
- 1975: Nippon ranking as top steelmaker (with US Steel displaced from the top position) is by crude steel production volume.
- 2003: Arcelor, Baosteel, Nippon jv centres on a Shanghai facility close to upstream plant of Bao Steel - which will focus on cold rolling and galvanising [annual capacity of 1.7 mt of flat rolled steels].
- 2003: The merger of the stainless steel divisions of Sumitomo Metal Industries and Nippon steel created Japan's largest stainless steelmaker - Nippon Steel and Sumikin Stainless Steel Corporation [NSSC].
- 2006: Following Mittal's bid for Arcelor, most Japanese steelmakers took measures to prevent hostile takeover bids incl Nippon, JFE, Sumitomo Metal Industries and Kobe Steel Ltd.
- 2011: Tata / Nippon jv is for 600kt/yr automotive cold-rolled steel continuous anneal and process line at Jamshedpur, India.
- 2011: Merger of Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal Industries is subject to antitrust approval by the Japan Fair Trade Commission [review underway as at mid-2011].
- 2012: In a 50-50 jv named NS BlueScope Coated Products, Nippon Steel will acquire half of BlueScope's interest in its South East Asian and North American building products businesses.
- 2012: With the creation of Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation, the company became the second largest steelmaker in the world.
- 2013: Expected launch of Tenigal [hot-dip galvanized and galvannealed sheets] in Monterrey, Mexico.
- 2013: Nippon Steel owns 33.3% stake in the Mozambique mine project and is looking to commence production in 2016. The Revuboe coal mine is estimated to have coking coal reserves of ~1.4 billion tonnes and is expected to produce 5 million tonnes of coking coal per year at its peak [which Nippon aims to reach by 2019].
- Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation and ArcelorMittal in November 2013 acquired ThyssenKrupp's Alabama steel mill in Calvert for $1.55 billion.
- 2016: NSSMC is the largest shareholder in Japan's fourth-largest steelmaker Nisshin Steel with a stake of around 8 percent. NSSMC plans to increase this stake to somewhere between 51-66% in the next 18 months or so. Nisshin Steel will then become a subsidiary of Nippon Steel (around March 2017) but Nisshin Steel's shares will remain listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
- 2016: The businesses of (i) Vallourec & Sumitomo Tubos do Brasil Limitada, which is a joint venture of Vallourec Group, NSSMC Group and Sumitomo Corporation, and is a Brazilian seamless pipe manufacturing company and (ii) Vallourec Tubos do Brasil S.A., which is Vallourec's fully-owned subsidiary of a seamless pipe manufacturing and sales company in Brazil, merged in October 2016 to become Vallourec Solucoes Tubulares do Brasil.
- 2016: Note that at the end of 2016, the dominant shareholders of Usiminas included NSSMC with 21.1%, Ternium/Tenaris with 19.8% and the Usiminas Pension Fund with 4.8% equity ownership.
- 2017: Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation completed procedures to acquire 51% of the shares of common stock of Nisshin Steel Co and made the company a subsidiary of NSSMC in March 2017.
- 2018: Creditors of Essar Steel India in October 2018 approved a joint offer by ArcelorMittal and Japan's Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation as final bidders for the debt-laden firm.
- 2019: Korean assets of Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporationa seized over Tokyo policy of forcing Koreans to work for little to no pay during Japan's colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula. Assets involved were Japanese steelmaker's 30% equity holding in POSCO-Nippon Steel RHF Joint Venture, worth ~$9.8 million.
- 2019: NSSMC aand ArcelorMittal announced on 16th December 2019 their joint acquisition of India's Essar Steel. The new venture will be named ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India.
- 2020: Nippon Steel announced in January 2020 that it would be cutting steel capacity. The company indicated that it would close both blast furnaces at its Kure Works within a few years; and that it might even shut down the entire steelworks in due course in the face of rising Chinese competition. Stagnant domestic economic growth was cited as a further factor behind the closure decision.
- 2020: Japan argues that the court ruling violates international law because all claims for compensation arising from Japan's 1910-1945 colonisation were settled under a 1965 treaty. The South Korean government on the other hand says that the ruling must be respected as a decision by an independent judiciary.
- 2020: Following 2019 acquisition by Nippon Steel and ArcelorMittal of Essar Steel in India, parent firms announced at end-2020 plans to double the capacity of their venture (now called AM/NS India). The current capacity of AM/NS India is ~9.6 mt steel products per year. This is expected to double to close to 20mt by 2030.
- 2020: ArcelorMittal in December 2020 announced the sale of ArcelorMittal's US assets to Cleveland-Cliffs. Those US assets included I/N Tek & I/N Kote, which are manufacturing bases for high grade automotive steel sheets for Japanese automotive customers in the United States in which Nippon Steel also had a significant ownership stake.
- 2021: NSSMC announced in December 2020 that in February 2021 it would increase its ownership stake in Siam Tinplate Co, making the firm a consolidated subsidiary of Nippon Steel.
- 2021: Kashima blast furnace closure was being contemplated across the medium-term, due to bleak prospects for recovery in domestic steel demand.
- 2022: Nippon Steel plans in April 2022 to merge two Thai subsidiaries - NS-Siam United Steel (NS-SUS) and Siam Tinplate (STP). The purpose of this is to consolidate the manufacturing and sale of cold-rolled and hot-dip galvanized steel sheets. The merged business will have production capacities of 1 million tonnes / year of cold rolled steel, 360,000 tonnes /year of hot-dip galvanized steel, 140,000 mt/year of tinplate and 120,000 metric tons / year of tin-free steel.
- 2022: The Thai acquisitions are G Steel Public Company Limited (G Steel) which produces ~1.6 mt / year of hot rolled sheet; and G J Steel Public Company Limited (GJ Steel) which manufactures ~1.5 million tonnes of hot rolled sheet steel per year.
- 2023: Under this arrangement, Nippon Steel enters into a long-term coal offtake agreement, under which Elk Valley Resources [a newly-formed business spun-off from Teck Resources as an independent publicly-listed Canadian company] supplies steelmaking coal to Nippon Steel.
- 2023: These closures at Setouchi included the decommissioning of the 4 mt / year hot strip mill and the pickling line. They follow the 2021 shutdown of iron and steelmaking plant which took place in 2021. The plant closures took place because of falling steel demand in Japan’s domestic market.
- 2023: Teck Resources Limited (Teck) is the second largest producer of high-quality steelmaking coal in the world.
- 2023: Other bidders in the race to buy U.S. Steel included Cleveland-Cliffs, ArcelorMittal and Nucor. As there is very little market overlap between Nippon Steel and US Steel, the deal is likely to attract little antitrust scrutiny.
- 2024: Mexico investment will be for construction of an auto sector electrical steel sheet processing center in Guanajuato. Start-up is planned for April 2025.
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