JFE Steel to Offer 5,000 yen/t Hike for Shipbuilders

JFE Steel will offer 5,000 yen per tonne or near 10% hike for domestic contract price of shipbuilding plate for shipment in the second half of fiscal 2006 starting October. The firm tries to improve the price, which is lower than other contract prices and other steel items, through the first hike in a year after the firm increased the price by 10,000 yen from April 2005 and by 5,000 yen from October 2005. Domestic shipbuilders keep more than 3 years of order backlog keeping the high level shipbuilding activity under the worldwide growing demand. However, Japanese plate steel makers have supplied the plate at lower price level than that for other users when domestic shipbuilders are suffered from lower shipbuilding price, which reflects orders contracted in 2-3 years ago. JFE Steel decided to increase the price again to keep stable supply for shipbuilders when shipbuilders will improve the profitability in and after second half of fiscal 2006. Domestic plate steel demand keeps firm for construction machinery while the demand started to improve for bridge and building from the slump. The plate supply is expected to get tighter when offshore demand also increases.