According to report, Japan’s Maruichi Steel Tube said it will life up all steel pipe and tube prices by ¥10,000/ton (US$108/ton) for April shipments. The price rise reflects the higher input costs, especially the hot rolled coils.

Maruchi’s annual capacity is 1.2 million tons and current operation is about 70% of total. The company secures about 55% of the HRC from JFE Steel, Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp (NSSMC) and Kobe Steel and the rest are from Posco and Taiwan’s CSC.

JFE Steel and NSSMC have announced to raise domestic HRC prices by ¥10,000~¥12,000/ton for April shipments. In addition the weak yen will also make the imported HRC more expensive which result in higher input cost as well.

Maruichi will also raise its export prices but the export sales only account to 2~3% of total sales.