San-Etsu Metals Hikes Brass Bar Price by 15 yen/kg

Japanese major brass rod maker, San-Etsu Metals announced on Tuesday the firm raised the selling price for all brass bar products by 15 yen per kilogram effective on Wednesday. The firm raised the price for the second time in 2006 after the first hike by 10 yen per kg in April.In April San-Etsu Metals partly passed increasing cost price on the selling price when the firm had to pay premium price to procure copper scrap, main material for brass bar. The firm owed the second hike to continuous supply tightness of copper scrap and freight increase for material transportation due to the surge of crude oil price. In addition the firm is recently suffered from rapid expansion of borrowed capital and interest cost when the copper price stays at the extreme high level.