Posted on 04 Sep 2025
Less than two weeks after declaring that it was keeping its domestic rebar prices unchanged at all its works for September, Kyoei Steel, Japan's largest rebar producer, has suddenly announced that it is raising prices of bars made at its Yamaguchi plant in western Japan by Yen 5,000/tonne ($34/t).
"Electric furnace (steel) manufacturers are facing an increase in the fixed cost burden (and) the situation is getting tougher day by day," Osaka-based Kyoei said in a statement issued on September 2. "We have been working to reduce costs to respond to the current situation, but it is difficult to respond only with self-help efforts. (Therefore) we have decided to raise the selling price of special-shaped steel bars (rebars) by Yen 5,000 from the current price," it said. The increase will take effect from September 8.
The Yamaguchi plant, located in Sanyo Onoda city in Yamaguchi prefecture and built in 1972, reportedly has a capacity of 550,000 tonnes/year in one 50-tonne EAF and produces about 330,000 t/y of crude steel. Besides rebars, the plant makes structural round bars, flat bars, I bars, and equal angle bars, according to its website.
In its statement Tuesday, Kyoei warned that since the poor market conditions facing rebars are similar for other steel varieties, it is considering revising its sales prices for them as well. Besides Yamaguchi, the mini-mill also operates plants in Hirakata in Osaka, in Nagoya in central Japan, and in Ibaraki, north of Tokyo. Prices for their rebars remain unchanged.
Kyoei announced its price rise for Yamaguchi just days after Tokyo-based rebar sales company Kanto D-bar Steel declared last Thursday that it was raising its rebar sales price – also by Yen 5,000/t – from September 1, as Mysteel Global reported. At the time, market watchers suggested that D-bar Steel's announcement would have little impact on market conditions – indeed, prices for base size rebars in the Tokyo area remain at Yen 104,000-Yen 106,000/t – or encourage other suppliers to raise their prices too.
"D-bar's increase last week might have motivated Kyoei to lift its prices, but the Yamaguchi works supplies a small market, so the impact may only be small," a Tokyo-based market source observed. "But Kyoei's announcement may be a kind of pre-notice that it intends to lift prices at other plants," the source said.
Kyoei's Yamaguchi works supplies customers in the Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu areas, all in western Japan, while Kanto D-bar steel supplies Tokyo – Japan's largest rebar market – and the Kanto Region stretching from Yokohama through to Saitama, Tochigi and Gunma prefectures. The Kanto area spans only 32,000 square kms but it hosts one-third of Japan's population and accounts for 45% of the country's GDP, Mysteel Global notes.
Source:Mysteel Global
