The situation is becoming certain for prices of steel tinplates for Southeast Asia to be raised for shipment of next quarter(January to March).
It is because the Japanese mills offered lately price increase by USD 50 from this quarter while customers are replying to be acceptable to be raised by USD 20 to 40 in their bids.There is a case that a bid of USD 10 increase was sent for short-time one month shipment(January shipment)from a customer of a neighboring country.Subsequent negotiations will become a struggle how the mills bring their price increase close to USD 50.
In the backdrop that customers in the Southeast Asian region are showing a stance to accept price increase of tinplates in next quarter,there is one factor for the situation to be in place that customers are able to purchase tinplates at ease being considered as no more price down because Baoshan Iron&Steel(Baosteel)of China has been proceeding with penetration of price increase by raising virtually its domestic tinplate prices for November and December shipments(its virtual prices were raised by reducing the discount range with no change of its list prices)and leaving them unchanged for January shipment.Another factor is price rise of hot rolled steel coils in the Southeast Asian region.The market price already increased by USD 30 to 40 in November/December,and in negotiations which has now been undertaken,price up of USD 10 has been confirmed for January shipment.Under the circumstances,as cheap products of China and so on disappeared,and the market prices of general steel products rose,each customer of tinplates also seems to have considered inevitable to accept price increase to some extent.
There is no movement of the Chinese and Korean tinplate mills yet.However,as prices of material HR coils are rising,they are forced to move on to price increase of tinplates,and therefore,tinplate prices in the Southeast Asian region are seen to rise in next quarter.
While,other markets than the Southeast Asian region are still tough.In the Middle East region,the European mills remain to go on the low price attack.Their prices are said to be USD 1,000 CFR or below that level,and accordingly,the Japanese mills do not have their turn.
As for concerned low grade tinplates of China,the mills of such grade tinplates are in a state of being hard to offer cheap prices as prices of material HR coils are rising.Under the situation,Baosteel's tinplate prices are reported to be penetrating into the Chinese market.In turn,there is a move among the low grade tinplate mills to switch to introduction of a continuous annealing line from an existing batch annealing furnace.If so,they are likely to become able to produce hard tinplates for food cans.