Japan Steels to Hike GO Electrical Steel Export by US$ 500-600/t

Japanese integrated steel makers decided to increase the export price of grain oriented electrical steel by US$ 500-600 per tonne for April. They expect the higher price is accepted by the buyers when worldwide steel price increases under higher cost for iron ore and coking coal along with recovering power project in the world while the electrical steel supply is balanced. They focus on the price first rather than the volume. They eye additional US$ 500-600 hike for second half of fiscal 2010 starting April.

Delayed power development projects are restarted worldwide increasing the electrical steel demand for transformer when emerging countries regain the another growth from slow economy after Lehman shock. Chinese raw steel output increase pushes iron making raw materials cost and the higher cost pushes steel market price.

Nippon Steel sees the electrical steel demand is still slow but the market started to recover from the bottom. The firm tries to increase the price to keep stable supply while the price decreased to too low level for the quality.

The supply was very tight until first half of last year due to worldwide higher demand for energy. However, the demand decreased after Lehman shock when major power development projects were postponed or canceled. The world largest market of China increased the import from USA, Russia and South Korea and the oversupply reduced the price.