Nippon Mining & Metals to Hike Cu-Ti Alloy Price by 600 yen/kg

Nippon Mining & Metals’ metal fabrication unit will increase the list price of copper titanium alloy by around 600 yen per kilogram from June. The decided to increase the price when the firm couldn’t cover all of surging copper ingot cost through the own effort. The unit will increase the list price to cover the cost price while the unit considers introducing new price mechanism to reflect change of official copper ingot price as other rolled copper products after consultation with users. The unit developed high performance copper titanium alloy products including high strength products and high conductive products lines in 2004. The unit has sold the high valued strategic products lines at the list price based on 250 yen per kg of copper ingot price. However, the copper market price started to increase since late 2004 and especially surges since April 2006. The spot market price reached 960 yen per kg and the averaged price is also 963 yen in May. The copper price is near 700 yen higher than the price for the list price. The demand of copper titanium alloy keeps growing for connector and other application. The metal fabrication unit decided to increase the list price to meet growing demand stably when the unit cannot absorb the extremely higher cost price. The many users also purchase other rolled copper products including phosphor bronze, which the unit sells at price mechanism to reflect change of copper ingot price. The unit will start talk with users to introduce such mechanism for copper titanium alloy to reflect copper ingot price move smoothly.