Strong Stainless Plate Price in Tokyo

The market price is strong at 500,000 yen per tonne for SUS304 grade hot cut plate and at 600,000 yen for plate mill products around Tokyo. Supply is tightest for stainless steel plate among flat stainless steel products. Nippon Steel & Sumikin Stainless Steel (NSSC) increased plate production capacity by about 30% in August. However, Japanese stainless steel makers including NSSC receive many orders for large projects and delivery lead time tends to take longer. The demand is active for industrial equipment such as chemical tanker and liquid natural gas plant. The distributors’ plate inventory was 36,173 tonnes for hot rolled products at the end of October, the shipment was 12,719 tonnes and the inventory-to-shipment ratio represented 2.84 months which hit the lowest level in the past, according to domestic processors association. The distributors have few inventories mainly for base size products. Small volume orders are increasing for distributors as well.