Nippon Shindo Increases Brass Bar Rolling Price by 10,000 y/t

Nippon Shindo announced the firm increases the rolling charge of brass bar by 10,000 yen per tonne effective on Wednesday for the first time in 2 years. The firm said it cannot absorb all of the higher cost for itself when copper and zinc price surges along with higher cost for energy, dies and other subsidiary materials. The price surges for raw materials of brass including copper and zinc under rapid growth of China. Japanese electrolytic copper price increased to 750,000 yen per tonne and zinc price doubled to 396,000 yen compared with 300,000-350,000 yen and 150,000-160,000 yen respectively in spring of 2004 when the firm increased the rolling charge. The prices increased to more than double and show sign to increase more. Japanese brass bar output increased by 5% for the months in 2006 from monthly 20,000 tonnes in 2005. The makers operate the facilities at full capacity. With the higher order, they are forced to compete with rivals in China and South Korea to secure raw materials and are suffered from higher cost for raw materials. They argue the cost of production loss also increases at rolling and castings processes.