Furukawa-Sky Aluminum to Raise Rolling Charge

Furukawa-Sky Aluminum Corporation will raise rolling charge for aluminium plate and extrusion by average 10% from the present when the firm is suffered from productive cost expansion such for crude oil and additive metals. Masateru Yoshihara, president of the firm, said the firm incurred 5.5 billion yen of cost increase in these 2 years and faced difficulty to absorb all costs by themselves despite of their efforts to cut costs. He said the firm intends to announce the hike to the users early in the second half of fiscal 2006 ending March 2007 after analysis of actual conditions of cost increase for each product. Among Japanese aluminium re-rollers, Sumitomo Light Metal Industries and Kobe Steel already showed intentions to raise their rolling charges. The hike could advance when Furukawa-Sky Aluminum, Japanese largest aluminium re-roller showed policy to raise its rolling charge. Furukawa-Sky Aluminum has made much effort for inside cost down, for example, energy shift to liquid natural gas. However, the firm is suffered from 2.5 billion yen of fuel cost increase in these 2 years, 1.7-2 billion yen of productive loss increase in casting processes and 0.6-1 billion yen of additive metal cost increase.