Nisshin Steel to Raise Cold-rolled Stainless Steel Sheet Price

A Japanese major stainless steel maker Nisshin Steel announced on Friday it would raise the selling price of stainless steel sheet by 20,000 yen per tonne for the shipping in May-June following the nickel price trend on LME (London Metal Exchange) and shorten the announcement of the selling price of nickel cold-rolled stainless steel sheet for distributors every 2 months from 3 months. Nisshin will reflect the price gap of the average nickel price on LME between for October-December 2005 and December 2005-February 2006. Nisshin will consider the comparison of the connecting material price for 3 months though the firm announces the selling price with 2 months because Nisshin reflects the connecting material price such as nickel to the selling price on a timely basis. Nisshin didn’t change the base price of the cold-rolled stainless steel sheets. Nisshin changed the surcharge system against the connecting material price. LME nickel price is increasing from December 2005 and is US$6.8 per pound; that has risen by about US$1 per pound for the past 3 months. Nisshin reflected the increasing nickel price for December 2005-February 2006 to the surcharge system. Nisshin is under full nickel cold-rolled stainless steel sheet production because it is shipping the hot-rolled steel coil to Ningbo Baoxin Stainless Steel in China at 5,000 tonnes per month. However, Nisshin will continue the production decrease for the cold- rolled steel coil though the demand of the cold rolled steel coil is recovering.