Common Steel Wire Price in Weak Tone, Tokyo

Common steel wire market price is weak around Tokyo. Galvanized steel wire market price is 190,000 yen per tonne for base size with 4 millimeters diameter. Annealed wire market price is 155,000 yen per tonne. Common steel wire is 145,000 yen.

Dealers anticipate the market price should fall along slow demand from building constructions or civil engineering. Users’ inventory adjustment continues while cheaper import products inflow. Dealers offer lower reselling price when some secondary processing makers reduced the selling price of wire products. Dealers’ inventory adjustment seems to take more time. Dealers’ shipment dropped in February from January and continues decreasing in March.

Users request price cut to steel wire makers and dealers. Some dealers seem to offer reselling price lower than break-even point. Wire rod makers prospects their shipment volume decreases in March compared with February.

Japanese common steel wire rod shipment decreased by 60.7% to 35,000 tonnes in January from a year earlier and the bar-in-coil shipment decreased by 49.1% to 28,000 tonnes, according to Japan Wire Products Association. Japanese common steel wire rod import decreased by 2.4% to 15,046 tonnes in January from a year earlier, though the import kept high quantity. Some wire processing makers reduced the selling price of nails or annealed wires by using cheaper imported wire rod.