Strong Stainless Plate Price in Tokyo

Market price of stainless steel plate is increasing at around 300,000 yen per tonne for SUS304 grade hot rolled coil plate, at 450,000 yen for the grade of plate mill products with 7-14 millimeters thick and at 740,000 yen for SUS316 grade plate mill products in Tokyo. The price could keep the strong trend despite of the seasonal slower demand.Nickel price surges at London Metal Exchange in April. The price increased to more than US$ 7 per pound and reached US$ 7.78 on Monday, which was the level of record in 2 years ago, from averaged US$ 6.76 in March and less than US$ 7 in January. The price could reach US$ 8. Japanese dealer source said the distributors cannot make money if nickel reaches US$ 8 level puzzling how to pass the higher cost price.Nippon Steel & Sumikin Stainless Steel will announce the monthly prices including alloy linked price for nickel series stainless products. The firm is likely to increase the nickel series products price by 5,000 yen per tonne under the mechanism. Distributors are suffered from the higher cost price when they have to increase the re-selling price again and again though the mechanism changes NSSC’s price automatically. The demand is firm though the inventory balance is still dull.