POSCO to Raise Stainless Steel Sheet Exporting Price for Japan

POSCO raises its exporting price of 300 series stainless steel sheet bound for Japan by 30,000 yen per tonne for cold-rolled products and by 25,000 yen for hot-rolled products for June contracts and July shipping, in order to pass increasing nickel price on the exporting prices. Additionally POSCO adopts monthly contracts between Japanese users instead of previous 2-month contracts to minimize the impact of material price fluctuation. The firm is likely to announce additional price hike for July contracts when nickel price at London Metal Exchange stays at the record high level.POSCO announced the price hike after the firm raised its exporting price of 300 series stainless steel sheet against Japan by 15,000 yen per tonne for April and May contracts. The firm seems to have raised its selling price against domestic users in May to 2.42 million won per tonne for hot-rolled 300 series stainless steel sheet, which equaled US$ 2530 or about 289,000 yen per tonne, and to 2.69 million won per tonne for cold-rolled products which increased by 200,000 won from the previous price. The exporting price for Japan seems less than the domestic prices. POSCO exports cold-rolled 300 series stainless steel sheet at US$ 3,150 per tonne, equal to about 350,000 yen, bound for countries other than Japan.