Sheet Steel Price Changes to Strong Tone in Tokyo

Steel sheet market price has anticipation of a rise. Coil centers and dealers are increasing the selling price when Tokyo Steel Manufacturing increased steel sheet selling price for 2 consecutive months and Nippon Steel increased hot coil price. It sounds that Japanese integrated steel makers raise the selling price by a large margin in April due to increasing material price.Sheet steel market price is 70,000-71,000 yen per tonne for hot rolled sheet, at 71,000-73,000 yen for pickling steel and at 79,000-81,000 yen for cold rolled sheet around Tokyo. These sheets prices increased by 1,000-2,000 yen per tonne compared with the ended of December 2007.The demand for specific users is strong. Japanese automobile makers plan to produce 11.8 million cars in fiscal 2007 at the ended of March 2008 which outreaches Japanese integrated steel makers’ forecast. The supply and demand is tightening in recently. Otherwise, the demand for dealers keeps slower.Coil centers and dealers are in a hurry to pass material price hike on the selling price when Japanese integrated steel makers would raise the selling price by over 10,000 yen per tonne after April. Large dealer source said dealers haven’t increased smoothly due to the resistance of local dealers or users.