Tokyo Steel Leaves All Steel Prices Unchanged for April

Tokyo Steel Manufacturing announced on Tuesday the firm leaves steel selling price unchanged for all items for distributors for April order. The firm tries to keep stable supply with all effort to serve recovery from damage by the major earthquake. The firm would leave the price unchanged for May order when Japanese market is still uncertain how much is the damage.

The firm recognized higher raw materials cost lifted steel market price. The firm increased the selling price of all steel items for 3 months in a row and indicated additional price hike for April order.

However, the firm decided to focus on stable supply including pricing after the quake when the market participants hold the order to find the market trend after the damage.

The firm leaves the steel selling price unchanged for spot based buyers at 83,000 yen per tonne for H-beam, 68,000 yen for concrete reinforcing steel bar and 80,000 yen for plate. The firm tries to meet emergency shipment requests on rebuilding fro the damage.

The firm could resume steel shipment from Utsunomiya plant this week for the first time after damage by the quake. The firm would take more time to check the damage to restart the production in the month. The production rate could be low level due to controlled blackout program around Tokyo but the firm tries to cover the production by increasing the output at Okayama and Kyushu plants.

The firm confirmed the damage on plant building including shutter and wall and some stocked products at Utsunomiya. The plant would resume the shipment in the week but the plant would take time to resume full scale shipment. The firm tries to minimize the impacts on the delay by shifting the H-beam production to Okayama and Kyushu plants.

The firm gets emergency shipment requests including H-beam, sheet forming shapes and material hot rolled coil supply for temporary houses for victims. The firm tries to meet the several thousands tonnes of request by increasing the output.