JSW Steel lifts prices by 2% as excise increase

India’s JSW Steel announced a 2 percent price increasing for all products, following the excise duty rising in India.

India’s Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee presented the annual budget to parliament on February 26th raising the excise tax to 10 percent from 8 percent for near all products.

JSW Steel is India’s third largest steelmaker, month before the company said they expect to get approval on four local iron ore mines from government.

(Source : Yieh Corp.)

Brazil's CSN sees 2010 steel sales up by a third

Brazil's No. 3 steelmaker CSN CSN3.SA aims to increase sales in 2010 by one third to 5.5 million tonnes, up from last year's 4.1 million tonnes, the company's commercial director said on Friday.

Luis Fernando Martinez said CSN was holding to its estimate of 37 million tonnes of iron ore exports this year, up sharply from 21.8 million tonnes in 2009. It said the supply and demand balance for steel would help prop up the selling price.

Steel imports into Brazil were holding down local prices but Martinez said higher prices on the international market would slow this inward flow. CSN expects to sell about 85 percent of its steel in 2010 on the domestic market.

The company reported fourth-quarter net earnings on Friday of 745.4 million reais ($407.1 million), down sharply from the 3.94 billion reais it made in the same quarter a year earlier but a smaller drop in profit than analysts had expected. ($1=1.817 reais).

(Source : Reuters)

CSC announces price increase for April and May 2020

On February 24th 2010, China Steel Corporation held the domestic pricing meeting for the April and May shipments of 2010 and announced the across the board price increase as shown in the following table.

In 2010, IMF revises global economic growth up to 3.9%, and worldsteel forecasts a better than expected steel demand growth of 9.2%. The stringent steel supply, occurring both in the domestic and global market, are presently reinforced by low steel inventory outside of China, BF revamping of major steel mills, and steel restocking of downstream customers.

The average markup of CSC's domestic steel price per tonne is about TWD 612, which requests merely 2.9% lift for the purpose of strengthening the downstream customers’ global competitiveness.

Prices increase for domestic sales in April and May shipments

TWD per tonne

(Source: Steel Guru)

Impress buys assets of liquidation-hit machinery group STI

Metal packaging giant Impress has bought the assets of Service Tool International (STI), the company that makes machinery for easy-open ends, after it went into liquidation.

Impress said that it had bought STI's assets including its intellectual property rights, and that the deal would safeguard the "knowhow and competitive advantages" of Impress's designs and developments.

STI is based in Illinois, US, and is one of the world's biggest manufacturers of conversion presses for easy-open ends and other components for the manufacture of metal packaging.

Impress said that it would continue to buy the majority of its equipment from third parties, but following the acquisition would continue to control the development and design of its proprietary easy-open ends.

Francis Labbé, Impress chief executive, said the acquisition was "another step in our mission to build on the advantages of metal packaging".

Impress has a range of easy-open ends including the ‘I'm 18' range for retorted food cans, which at 0.18mm thick is the lightest easy-open end on the market for ambient canned foods in the 400g can size.

It has recently launched Softlift, a steel easy-open end which gives easier finger access to the ring-pull.

Impress has expanded swiftly through acquisitions or alliances in recent years. Last September it revealed plans to build a $30m plant in New York State and established a business in Korea, while deals earlier in the previous two years gave it presence in Thailand, Spain and Portugal, and Peru.

(Source: Packaging News)