Tokyo Steel Leaves Selling Price Unchanged for All Items in October

Tokyo Steel Manufacturing announced on Monday the firm set the selling price for all steel items unchanged for October orders from dealers. The firm left the price unchanged for the first time in one year and 2 months. The firm supposed cheap imports may increase due to low ferrous scrap price and rising yen exchange rate. Naoto Ohori, the firm’s general manager, said Tokyo Steel keeps cautious production and sales along the demand.

Tokyo Steel raised the selling price by 3,000-5,000 yen per tonne for all items in September. However, ferrous scrap price dropped by 3,000 yen per tonne in a month. South Korean re-rollers offered the purchase price of hot coil at as low as FOB US$ 500-550 per tonne. The firm contracted H-beam export at US$ 650 per tonne for September-October shipment but some Chinese makers are selling at below US$ 600.

Tokyo Steel left the selling price unchanged for rebar at 59,000-60,000 yen and base sized H-beam at 72,000 yen. Mr. Ohori explained steel demand from emerging countries is expanding while European and US steel demand is recovering step by step. However, market conditions are still unforeseeable at home and overseas in a short term, he said.

The firm is expected to lower the estimation for its steel sales volume from present 1.2 million tonnes for October 2009-March 2010. The firm made a downward revision for the sales from 1 million tonnes to 850,000 tonnes for April-September 2009. The firm’s current output is 60,000 tonnes per month for H-beam, 50,000 tonnes for hot coil and 20,000 tonnes for plate. The output is 50% level of ordinary operation.