Firm Japan Nickel Series Stainless Flat Price

Nickel series stainless steel hot rolled flat steel price keeps firm under surging nickel price at London Metal Exchange. The price is 550,000 tonnes per tonne for SUS304 hot cut sheet and 650,000 yen for plate mill products. The price is expected to increase to 600,000 yen and 700,000 yen respectively under higher nickel price and tight supply.The supply is tight for plate mill products. The demand increases for offshore paper making plant and indirect export items. The demand also increases for vacuum chamber. LME nickel price reached averaged US$ 16.70 per pound in January compared with former record at US$ 14.83 in October 2006. Nippon Steel & Sumikin Stainless Steel and other makers will increase the selling price for February to cover the higher cost price. They increased the base price along with alloy linked charge. Stainless flat steel inventory held by stainless plate processors increased to more than 30,000 tonnes at the end of December for the first time in 5 months. Their shipment kept more than 12,000 tonnes for 4 months in a row. The makers keep the full capacity operations while they reduced the shipment to distributors.