Japan Steels Cut Shipbuilding Plate by 13,000 yen/t in 2H F2011

Japanese integrated steel makers are concluding plate contract price negotiation with domestic shipbuilders to reduce the price by around 13,000 yen per tonne for second half of fiscal 2011 ending March 2012 from the first half. They don’t disclose the detail for individual transactions and the price depends on the conditions while the negotiation continues for some buyers. The shipbuilders with severe competition for new ship order won the wide price down when iron making raw materials cost decreased, price gap gets wider between export and domestic price and the users use more import plate including POSCO’s product.

The integrated steel makers won 8,000 yen per tonne of price hike for the first half from second half of fiscal 2010. The price increased to near 90,000 yen when the raw materials cost increased. The steel makers apparently reduced the price by 8,000 yen for October-December and by 5,000 yen for January-March due to lower raw materials cost and wider price gap with offshore market under high yen rate.

Especially import plate impacted on the lower domestic price. POSCO and South Korean makers expand the sales to Japan under lower won rate against yen. Japanese plate import doubled to 470,000 tonnes in 2011 from 2010. Japanese major shipbuilders started to shift to import plate under historical high yen rate while small shipbuilders have used import plate. The import plate price is less than 60,000 yen including freight recently. The import could increase more depending on exchange rate.

The negotiation could be severe for Japanese steel makers for fiscal 2012 due to oversupply of plate along with high yen rate. Asian plate makers expanded the production capacity while shipbuilders’ order receipt decreased for Japan, South Korea and China. The shipbuilding price keeps low level under slump in ocean freight market. The steel makers’ sales condition would keep severe.