Rescheduling to conduct the repair work in September in order to smoothly provide customers with wire rods necessary for bolts and nuts in the second quarter POSCO is making its utmost efforts to more smoothly supply materials to those secondary wire rod makers for automotive parts including bolts and nuts who are suffering from supply shortages of materials particularly in the wake of a recent drop in supply of imported products. POSCO, which is supplying about60% of the whole wire rods for use in the production of carbon steel wires for cold heading and cold forging(CHQ) in Korea to such consumers as Dongbu Steel, SeAH Special Steel andKoram Steel, postponed its repair work on Wire Rod Mill II of Pohang Works to September from June in its original schedule set in April with the aim to additionally supply of 14,000 tons of wire rods to its customers in the second quarter of this year. Domestic CHQ makers have been recently suffering from material supply shortages due to a temporary reduction of about 200,000 tons in imports of materials and a rise in the international market prices for raw materials. Thus, POSCO's such additionalsupply of wire rods would make a great contribution to their stable purchase of raw materials. Taking a look at the recent supply and demand of CHQ for use in production of bolts andnuts, the CHQ imports from Japan has continuedto stay at 70% of the normal level since April due to the supply shortage of coke at Japanese steelmakers, while demand for CHQ has continuously increased in line with the growing demand for bolts andnuts thanks to a rise in the exports of automotive knockdowns, causing severe unbalance between demand and supply. POSCO has continuously increased the supply of its wire rods for CHQ despite the limited wire rod production capacity. Its sales of wire rods for CHQ accounted for 28% of the total wire rod sales in the third quarter of 2003, and the company increased its portion to 30% in the last quarter of the previous year. POSCO said that it is planning to gradually increase its supply ratio of such high-grade wire rods as those for CHQ, tire cords and springs to a large extent in connection with the growth of automotive industry, taking a turning point in 2006 when its Wire Rod Mill I will get through streamlining work. jhkwak@snmnews.com