Tokyo Steel Cuts Steel Prices by 5,000 yen/t

Tokyo Steel Manufacturing announced on Monday the firm reduces the selling price by 5,000 yen per tonne for all items for distributors for December order. The price of hot rolled coil and H-beam decreases by 50,000 yen or more than 40% from the recent peak and equals the level in the beginning of the year. The firm expands the output reduction for second half year to March 2009 to 20-30% compared with 15% before.

The firm reduces the selling price to encourage the order when the firm got same level of order for November order as October despite of the major price cut. The firm also tries to compete with import price when the hot coil price is around US$ 600-650 per tonne and some transactions are as low as US$ 450.

The firm reported the H-beam output decreases by 20,000 tonnes to 100,000 tonnes in November from original plan while the production is planned 70,000 tonnes for hot coil. The firm expects the production will decrease in December from November. The plate production is around 30,000 tonnes in November compared with near 50,000 tonnes in October.

The firm reduces the spot sales price of H-beam by 5,000 yen to 83,000 yen per tonne, which is for production in December and January.

The firm resumes plate sales for SM490A and SN490B grades after temporally stop since July order to supply for the own new plant building in Aichi.