Since July of this year, Japanese steel companies will raise the price of US$200 per ton for shipbuilding in Korea. At present, Japanese steel companies have informed South Korea Hyundai Heavy Industries, Samsung Heavy Industries and Daewoo Shipbuilding Marine about their ship board price increase plans. It is understood that JFE Steel Group and Nippon Steel currently supply Korean shipboards at a price of US$700/tonne (FOB), and Japanese steel companies want to increase it to US$900/tonne.
In May, South Korea’s steel plate prices increased by 25% to reach KRW 0.9 million/ton (about US$ 810/ton). Due to the superiority of Japan’s shipboard quality over Korean shipboards, the price of South Korean imports of Japanese shipboards has always been higher than that of South Korea. Locally produced ship boards. South Korea’s steel industry predicts that South Korea’s demand for shipboard this year will be approximately 12.42 million tons, requiring imports of 3.835 million tons. Among them, South Korea imported approximately 1 million to 1.5 million tons of shipboard thick plates from Japan this year.