It is learned that some Japanese blast furnace mills are thinking of skipping hot rolled coils (HRC) shipment in July. Their strategy is to put turbulence in contract prices for Korea in order by deferring shipment by one month, to rebuild the environment of HR coils in the Asian region and to avoid customer’s request at cheap prices.

In China, it is usual that the market prices bottom out in the third quarter and raise toward to the end of the year, therefore, these Japanese blast furnace mills have seen to be necessary to put pricing of HR coils in order before that.

Actually, thanks to an upward revision of car production and also increase in orders of vessels in Japan, the demand is recovering.

Therefore, the mills may come out the limit export in order to shift to the domestic market.

Obviously, even if the mills skip negotiations on HRC for Korea by one month, it is seen to have little adverse effect on their production.