Tokyo Steel Reduces Hot Coil, Rebar by 2,000 yen/t

Tokyo Steel Manufacturing announced on Monday the firm reduces the selling price of concrete reinforcing steel bar, hot rolled coil and checkered plate coil by 2,000 yen per tonne for December order. The price decreases to 68,000 yen for rebar and to 70,000 yen for hot coil after the reduction for the first time since October 2005. The firm tries to adjust the price with the sales and market condition. The firm sees the domestic market gets worse with very slow building demand under transition process for new building standard law while the offshore market could slow down with US subprime loan issue and weak US dollar. The firm tries to adjust the supply volume through output reduction and export balance. The firm reduces the output by 10-15% in January from December when the firm plans a week long maintenance outage at the plants along with fewer operation days. The firm expects the H-beam output decreases by around 10%. The firm tries to export the products at US$ 610-620 per tonne for hot coil, at US$ 680-700 for H-beam and US$ 730-750 for plate when the offshore market is still firm with strong demand and higher ocean freight.