JFE Steel to Hike Domestic Price by 20% for All Steel Pipe Items

JFE Steel announced on Thursday the firm increases the selling price of all steel pipe items by 20% for domestic buyers in April. The price hike covers electric resistance welded pipe, gas pipe, seamless pipe and UOE pipe for distributors and contract users. The firm already notified the distributors of the hike and starts negotiation with the contract users individually for the hike.

The firm decided the price hike when the demand increases mainly in emerging countries and raw materials cost could increase widely for fiscal 2010 starting April. The firm decided the pipe hike to keep stable supply by securing material sheet steel when the firm already announced 15,000 yen per tonne of sheet steel price hike for distributors for April shipment and tries to meet growing offshore demand.

The firm tries to keep supply balance by limiting the production of gas pipe and seamless pipe to the level of actual demand. The firm keeps the production level in first half of fiscal 2010 at 40-50% lower than the peak in first half of fiscal 2008 due to the very slow demand.