Steel Wire Product Price Drops by 5,000-8,000 Yen/t This Year

The market price of common steel wire products has decreased by 5,000-8,000 yen per tonne or 2-4% since the beginning of this year in Tokyo and Osaka. Export price is even lower than domestic market price and the price gap seems widening.

The demand for wire products dropped after October when users hold off the buying with an expectation the market price could decline more. The market price was flat with potential decrease at the end of December but restarted gradual decline in January.

The market price reduced by 3,000-5,000 yen per tonne around Tokyo with demand drop since last summer. Dealers are likely to request price cut against steel wire product makers. Then wire manufacturers would offer lower price against wire rod makers because wire rod price keeps relatively high level.

In Osaka, the market price decreased by around 5,000 yen per tonne to 155,000 yen for nails, by 5,000 yen to 154,000 yen per tonne for annealed wire, and by 3,000-5,000 yen to 190,000 yen per tonne for galvanized steel wire.

Dealers seem to offer cheaper reselling price in order to minimize high-price inventory. They take precedence to inventory adjustment when wire rod and wire product prices are expected to drop more after April.

Though domestic wire product prices maintains flat, import wire rod price dropped to over US$ 500 per tonne after autumn 2008 from over US$ 1,000 of peak price from China.