-- Nippon Steel Corp., the world's second-biggest maker of the metal, raised prices of plate used by shipbuilders and machinery makers for the third time this year to pass along surging costs for energy, ore and other materials.

Steel plate sold through wholesalers on an immediate- delivery basis will increase 10,000 yen ($95) a metric ton on Aug. 1, said Masato Suzuki, a spokesman for the Tokyo-based company. Prices have jumped 50 percent since the quarter ended March, when the company said its average product price was 80,200 yen a ton.

Nippon Steel, which forecasts a 41 percent drop in annual profit, needs to raise prices to offset a tripling of costs for coking coal and a surge of as much as 97 percent in iron ore. Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., the world's biggest shipyard, and rivals are buying more steel as they fill order backlogs stretching into 2012.

Supply for the metal is ``tight,'' Suzuki of Nippon Steel said today by telephone.

Nippon Steel fell 2.3 percent to 557 yen at the 11 a.m. local time break on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The shares are down 20 percent this year, compared with a 17 percent drop in the Nikkei 225 Stock Average.

The company raised spot plate-delivery prices by about 10 percent to 110,000 yen a ton as of June. That gain followed a 20,000 yen increase in April.