April 30, 2008
The Metals Company of Furukawa Electric manufactures and sells copper products such as sheets, strips, bars, wires and tubes.
In view of the violent fluctuations in copper price and steep rises in transportation, indirect materials and energy costs, the Company has decided to ask our customers to raise the prices of wrought copper products and copper foils.
With the record-high prices of oil in addition to the soaring prices of key metals, the current cost situation is such that it is entirely impossible to offset the rises by our self-help efforts alone such as streamlining, improvement of efficiency and cost reduction. In order to maintain a stable supply of products hereafter, we are forced to ask our customers to pass on the part of the soared cost rises to the product prices.
The price revision is broadly divided into the material cost revision where the rises in material loss cost and non-sliding scale material cost such as tin and nickel are added to the material cost, and the process cost revision.
In addition, in order to deal with the prominent metal price risk due to the violently fluctuating copper price, we plan to ask our customers who presently follow the pricing rule based on the copper quotation averaged over the month prior to order to the one based on the copper quotation averaged over the month prior to delivery.
The price raise is scheduled to be applied to all of our wrought copper products (i.e., plates, strips, bars, wires and tubes) and copper foils.