Weak Structural Steel Bar Price in Tokyo

Structural steel bar market price is weak at around 130,000 yen per tonne for carbon steel for machine structural use and at around 160,000 yen for chromium and molybdenum steel around Tokyo. Some transaction price is arround 2,000 yen lower than the market consensus under accelerated downward pressure. The price is likely to decrease more under very slow demand.

The deamnd shows sign to recover from the bottom for major users of automobile and construction machinery makers when the users started to increase the operation rate. The dealers’ inventory keeps decresaing from the peak in January and the adjustment is expected to accelerate to progress through July.

The dealers’ inventory decreased by 6.0% to 228,213 tonnes in April from March level, which decreaesd for 3 months in a row, according to the dealers’ national accosition. The shipment incresaed by 0.9% to 58,843 tonnes, which increased for 2 months in a row. A dealer said the dealers have some stock out size due to lower inventory level.