CSC announces domestic prices to rise next month
By Chen Cheng-hui / Staff reporter
China Steel Corp (CSC, 中鋼), Taiwan’s largest integrated steelmaker, yesterday announced that it is increasing domestic prices next month, amid price rises overseas, robust orders and depreciation of the New Taiwan dollar.
The announcement came as raw material costs remain relatively high, with iron ore and metallurgical coal prices at about US$90 and US$265 per tonne respectively, keeping steelmaking costs relatively high, CSC said in a statement.
China’s output curbs, along with protectionist trade policies in the US and Europe, have led to tighter supply and higher steel prices, it said.
Rolls of steel are pictured at a China Steel Corp plant in Kaohsiung in an undated photograph.
Photo courtesy of China Steel Corp
In the US, hot-rolled coil spot prices recently climbed above US$1,450 per tonne, the highest in nearly four-and-a-half years, while Tokyo Steel Manufacturing Co last month raised its prices for hot-rolled coils, rebar and I-beams by ￥3,000 (US$18.94) per tonne.
Hung Yen, Vietnam-based Hoa Phat Group’s hot-rolled coil prices were also up by US$5 per tonne due to exchange rate factors, CSC said.
“Global steel prices are showing a steady upward trend,” the statement said.
Against this backdrop, the Kaohsiung-based company is raising prices by NT$300 (US$9.13) per tonne, its third consecutive monthly increase, it said.
The price hikes apply to products such as hot-rolled steel plates and coils, cold-rolled steel coils, anti-fingerprint electro-galvanized steel coils, hot-dip galvanized coils for construction and coating, and electro-galvanized coils for construction, it said.
CSC’s cumulative revenue in the first three quarters of this year rose 6.16 percent year-on-year to NT$256.67 billion amid robust domestic demand and a recovering global steel market.
Analysts at Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (元大投顧) said in a note that CSC’s price hikes could see this quarter’s revenue increase 20 percent to NT$90.46 billion from a year earlier.
With full-year revenue estimated to rise 9.5 percent annually to NT$347.14 billion, the company is forecast to turn profitable this year with net profit of NT$2.77 billion after reporting a net loss of NT$4.35 billion last year, its first loss in 47 years, Yuanta said.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.