Titanium Buyers Rush to Secure Materials Before Price Hike

Titanium products users increase the purchase before the price of rolled titanium products will increase by more than 20% in April. With large volume of new orders, some titanium processors, which have limited capacity to output more with limited availability of titanium materials and commitment for existing orders, reject some of the order. A source of titanium processor, which produces parts for heat exchanger, said users know titanium price will increase and increase the order. The source said some users increase the order with totally much volume than usual and the processor has to reject some order to allocate limited products for other users. Such purchase boom is heating up toward the price increase. Japanese 2 major sponge titanium makers hiked the selling price by around 20% for export in January. They are expected to increase the yearly contract price at similar scale for domestic rolled titanium makers from April. Rolled titanium price will increase under the higher cost price. With the wide price hike for 2 consecutive years, some concern users seek alternative materials for some applications. However, the demand for the main application of plant is firm for Chinese investment and Japanese demand is also firm under aggressive capital expenditure by private sector. The supply is very tight and the delivery is taking more time with limited availability of titanium source. Major titanium processors with stable sources including rolled titanium makers and trading firms secure requirement while smaller processors compete to secure the materials. With the higher demand, some users try to secure more materials before the price hike. Some suppliers put deadline for the quotation under demand boom though such move is never seen during lower titanium price. Surging titanium price makes quotation cheaper in short period of time. The price gap is much wider for large plant business, which takes around 2 years from quotation to construction. A source of processor said the firm has never deadline for the quotation but the firm now put one month expiration date for the quotation.