Japan Copper Alloy Product Makers in Hard Price Negotiation

Japanese copper alloy product makers are having difficult negotiations with the customers for the price hike they announced in 2006. The copper alloy product makers have tried to pass increasing material costs, such for copper and sub materials, on the selling prices in order to cover material losses in their productive processes. However, some makers have not achieved the hike yet.Copper alloy products, for which copper is mainly used and other metals such as tin and nickel, have a price mechanism to reflect copper ingot price fluctuation automatically. However, the price mechanism doesn’t assume material losses in the productive processes. As to copper strips, for example, 3% of materials are lost in melting and casting processes.Japanese copper alloy product makers started to announce price hike in 2006. Furukawa Electric announced the firm raises its rolling charge for copper sheet, strip and tube with above 25 millimeters diameter by 30-50 yen per kilogram. Hitachi Cable announced the hike for common copper strip and large diameter copper tube by 10-100 yen per kg. DOWA Metaltech also announced the hike for copper alloy sheet and strip by maximum 70 yen per kg.However, Chikamasa Ujihira, president of Furukawa Electric’s Metals Company, described at a press meeting in October that the firm still continued the price negotiation with the users mainly for copper alloy strips. An official of Hitachi Cable also said the firm could not achieve the hike yet against some customers in October.