Higher Ferrous Scrap Purchase Price by Electric Furnaces in Tokyo

Some electric furnace steel makers around Tokyo increased the ferrous scrap purchase price at the end of last week. Tokyo Steel Manufacturing’s Utsunomiya plant raised the purchase price to 435,000 yen per tonne for H2 grade on Friday, which renewed high record since 1995 when the plant started the operation. The price hit the highest when new contracted export price of Japanese ferrous scrap surged and the plant planned the output increase before weekend holidays for 12-14 January.Local makers’ purchase price increased to 39,500-41,000 yen per tonne by about 5,000 yen for H2 grade over the previous month and some makers pay as high as 43,500 yen.Tokyo Steel Manufacturing’s Utsunomiya plant increased the purchase price by 15,000 yen per tonne for H2 grade on Friday. Some other makers increased the price by around 1,000 yen per tonne.Tokyo Tekko, Japanese major electric furnace maker in Tokyo, stopped the operation for scheduled refinement. Sanko Seiko and Tokyo Steel Manufacturing’s Okayama plant will stop the operation after the middle of this month. Many dealers expected ferrous scrap market price would become slow due to these makers’ shutdown. However, dealer source said the market price couldn’t be weak due to increasing export price.