Japan’s top steelmaker said it is close to securing price hikes from domestic manufacturing giants, signaling the balance of power is shifting from buyers to sellers as the alloy’s price surges.

"We’ve seen big progress in correcting contract prices,” Nippon Steel Corp. Executive Vice President Takahiro Mori said Friday in an interview. "Second-half contracts have been almost settled.”

Japan’s steel suppliers are gaining the upper hand in a market where carmakers, their biggest customers, have typically had more bargaining power.