Japan H-Beam Inventory Decreases in March

Nippon Steel announced on Wednesday Japanese distributors’ H-beam inventory held by Tokiwa-kai, which is a group of dealers dealing Nippon Steel’s products, decreased by 6.5% or 14,900 tonnes to 213,700 tonnes at the end of March from a month ago. The inventory represented year-to-year decrease for 4 consecutive months, reached records low. The firm said the demand keeps slow due to the revision of Japanese building standard law, the shipping keeps higher level due to speculative demand. The inventory rate decreased to 1.49 months of monthly shipment from 1.58 months.H-beam inventory decreased by 8,000 tonnes or 6.6% to 112,700 tonnes at the end of May from a year ago in Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka area. The inventory decreased by 7.0% around Tokyo, decreased by 3.0% around Nagoya and decreased by 9.4% around Osaka.Nippon Steel announced to raise H-beam selling price by 10% or 8,000 yen for dealers in April order, which raised for 3 consecutive months. The firm increased by 30,000 yen per tonne from January. The firm announced to keep the price in May and June order when the market price increased sharply due to anticipation of a rise. The firm raised the price when the domestic demand rather recovered and material costs are expected to more rise.The firm expects the demand would decrease until May due to negative effect of speculative demand, and would return to normal level after June.