Japan's UACJ wins orders from Kobe Steel customers
02/11/2017 12:08
TOKYO, Nov 2 (Reuters) - Japan's biggest aluminium
fabricator UACJ Corp 5741.T has won orders from customers of
its rival Kobe Steel Ltd 5406.T which is embroiled in a data
fabrication scandal, UACJ's president said on Thursday.
Kobe Steel's admission last month that it had found
tampering in specifications mainly in aluminium and copper
products, has sent companies in global supply chains scrambling
to check whether the safety or performance of their products has
been compromised. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N1MS1D4 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N1N51HO
UACJ President Mitsuru Okada said his company has received
orders to replace Kobe Steel's products which are sold to
manufacturers of cars, planes, trains and other products across
the world.
"We will listen to their request one by one and will respond
if we can," Okada said. He declined to say who the customers
were, but said the requests are coming "bit by bit from various
segments."
UACJ hadn't seen a large number of orders from customers
switching, Okada said. "Even if that happens, there is capacity
issues," he added, saying some of the mills are running at high
utilisation rates already.
UACJ has found no data fabrication issues from its own
recent internal inspection, Okada also said.
The company brought forward its inspection to October from
November because of the Kobe Steel scandal and conducts regular
quality checks, with a quality committee reporting to the board.
"We'll continue regular checks and the committee's role
while we will also seek better ways through consulting with our
customers whenever we have new products and so on," Okada said.
Kobe Steel's Executive Vice President Naoto Umehara said
earlier this week that the misconduct would likely reduce its
recurring profit in the October-March period by 10 billion yen
($88 million).
"We understand our customers are taking a harsh view of the
data fabrication," Umehara said. "An immediate impact may be
limited, but we may see more impact as time goes
by." urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N1N51HO
($1 = 114.0600 yen)
(Reporting by Yuka Obayashi; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)
((Yuka.Obayashi@thomsonreuters.com; +813-6441-1798; Reuters
Messaging: yuka.obayashi.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))
Keywords: KOBE STEEL SCANDAL/UACJ