Weak Structural Steel Bar Price in Tokyo

Structural steel bar market price is weak and some dealers’ offer lower price around Tokyo. The price is around 140,000 yen per tonne for carbon steel bar for machine structures and around 170,000 yen for chrome-molybdenum steel bar. However, the price gap is widened depending on the dealers and areas when the dealers’ inventory increases and ferrous scrap price drops. The market price could decrease more when the dealers tend to liquidate the inventory toward fiscal year end in March.

The dealers’ sales volume halves from a year earlier level when the major users keep wide production cut for automobile and construction machinery. The dealers’ inventory keeps historical high level.

A dealer source said the shipment is firm for some series of vehicle due to the strong sales while the automobile demand is slow generally and very slow especially for large scale vehicle. The dealers focus on inventory adjustment for better supply balance.