Sumitomo Metals to Hike Seamless Pipe by 15%

Sumitomo Metal Industries announced on Thursday the firm increases the selling price of carbon and alloyed steel seamless pipe by 15% for domestic buyers for March order and April production. The firm tries to improve the profitability to keep stable supply under international tight supply through the first hike since July 2007 production. The firm already started the negotiation with domestic users including distributors and contract users. The firm expects the offshore demand keeps strong for fiscal 2008 starting April while the firm gets strong request from domestic users to increase the supply. The firm anticipates the firm cannot meet strong demand with limited capacity. The firm supplies around 200,000 tonnes per year of seamless pipe for domestic market, which represents around half of around 400,000 tonnes f Japanese market. The firm decided the hike to keep the stable supply for domestic buyers when the domestic price is much lower than export price and the firm expects wide hike for iron ore, coal, ferroalloy and freight. Under tight supply, the firm increased the price 8 times since 2001 lifting the price to 1.9-2 times during the period. The firm also studies potential price hike for domestic gas distribution steel pipe for April.