Strong Steel Plate Market Price around Tokyo

Steel plate market price is strong when dealers started to raise the reselling price to reflect makers’ price hike around Tokyo. The market price is around 82,000 yen per tonne for standard sized product with 19 millimeters thick, 5 feet width and 10 feet length and around 98,000 yen for cutting sheet around Tokyo.Nippon Steel raised the selling price by 3,000 yen per tonne for October contracts to reflect increasing material costs. Chubu Steel Plate, Japanese major steel plate maker, raised the selling price by 5,000 yen for October-November shipment.Plate dealers are starting to increase the reselling rice by 2,000-3,000 yen per tonne from October. However, the hike is not advanced due to slow demand and excess inventory at searing processors. Dealers’ shipment keeps slow. Many dealers pointed out they have few orders when building construction starts are delayed under the influence of Japanese building standard law revision.Steel plate inventory was 460,000 tonnes at shearing processors at the end of August. The inventory rate was 168.9% of shipment per month. The inventory keeps over 450,000 tonnes since January 2007.The demand for building construction is running rate. Shearing processor source said building objects would recover soon and the products would overflow from major shearing processors which have the order for big building objects. The supply might become tight if the demand recovers.