Japan's Nippon Steel lifts CRC, plate prices for Sep'20

Nippon Steel Stainless Steel Corp (NSSC), Japan's largest stainless producer, will raise its September list prices of 300-series cold-rolled coils (CRCs) and plates for domestic sales to distributors by Yen 10,000/tonne ($94/t) to reflect higher nickel prices, the company confirmed on September 4.

This has been the first time after it price increase of Yen 5,000/t for both its 300- and 400-series stainless products for June sales, though it has left the 400-series out of the latest price increase, explaining that the price movements of nickel and ferrchrome have varied.

Nickel price has been rising rapidly, and the average LME nickel price for July-August increased by $0.4/lb from June-July to $6.31/lb, a NSSC official shared, while NSSC had managed to reach an agreement with the ferrochrome suppliers to remain the ferroalloy price unchanged on quarter at $1.22/lb for July-September, he added.

NSSC does not disclose its exact list prices after adjustments, but as of September 4, the SUS304 2mm CR cut sheet is being transacted at Yen 360,000/t in Japan's spot market, SUS 304 7mm thick plate at Yen 500,000/t, and SUS430 2mm CR cut sheet at Yen 270,000/t, all unchanged on month, according to sources.

Japan's demand for stainless CR sheets have been slowly bottoming out since June, but the domestic distributors have been facing difficulties in convincing their customers to pay higher prices for deliveries, a Tokyo-based distributor admitted.

"We can tell clearly that stainless demand from the auto sector has been improving, but spot buying is still low in volume, which makes it impossible to pass on a total price increase of Yen 15,000/t rise by the producers in the past few months to our buyers," he said, though at least NSSC's price rises may help to "stop customers from asking for price discounts".

A second Tokyo distributor agreed, warning, though, that the Japanese stainless producers may increase their prices further, as LME nickel prices has been strengthening further recently, reaching $7.1/lb on September 1.

"The producers have been cutting their sales volume to adjust the supply-demand balance, which we hope may help to push higher prices through to end-users," he said.

Stainless flat supply by producers have been about 30% lower on year since March, and the September supply quantity may be cut less by 25% on year in consideration of better demand, he noted.

Japan's domestic sales of 300-series CRCs and sheets through coil centers in July totaled 23,262 tonnes, down 21.3% on year but up 1.1% from June, and 400-series CRC sales reached 20,253 tonnes, down 29.5% on year but up 7.8% on month, as reported.

This article has been published under an article exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and SteelMint.