Price Hikes by Japan Processed Steel Makers

Japanese makers of processed steel products announced price hike one after another. Daiwa Steel Tube Industries increases the selling price of all structural and mechanical steel pipe items by 5,000 yen per tonne effective on March 22 shipment. JFE Metal Products & Engineering increases the selling price of all deck items by more than 10,000 yen per tonne for March shipment. Shinko Bolt increases the selling price by 20,000 yen per tonne for February shipment.

The processed steel makers try to pas higher materials cost including hot rolled coil and wire rod. They eye additional price hike depending on the material situation when hot coil makers would increase the selling price more to cover higher iron ore and coal price in and after April.

They try to increase the selling price to secure margin under higher material cost even when the demand is still slow. The cost oriented price hikes would pressure on the downstream market price including dealers’ transaction market despite of the pace is slower than the makers’ move.