China's major steel prices head south amid falling material prices, softening sentiment

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China’s prices of major steel products declined again in the week of March 25-29 after the short recovery in the previous week, mainly due to the decrease in prices of steelmaking raw materials and softening sentiment in the domestic market, Mysteel Global learned.

Rebar: As of March 29, China’s national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar under Mysteel’s assessment came in at Yuan 3,614/tonne ($500/t) including the 13% VAT, falling by Yuan 121/t on week and marking the lowest since April 30 2020.

As for the derivatives market, the most-traded contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange for delivery in May closed the daytime trading session at Yuan 3,412/t on March 29, lower by Yuan 200/t compared with the settlement price on March 22. In the international derivative market, SGX Mysteel Shanghai rebar futures closed at USD 489/t last Friday for the most-active May contract.

Spot sales of construction steel also retreated last week with weak demand for speculation. Over March 25-29, the daily trading volume of rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among the 237 trading houses under Mysteel’s regular survey registered 122,808 tonnes/day on average, down by 36,239 t/d or 22.8% from the previous week.

Billet: Last Friday, the price of Tangshan Q235 150mm square billet in North China’s Hebei province was assessed by Mysteel at Yuan 3,280/t EXW and including the 13% VAT, sliding by Yuan 130/t on week. Considering the weakness in finished steel prices, many domestic re-rollers preferred to purchase the semis at lower prices, Mysteel Global noted.

HRC: China’s average price of Q235 4.75mm hot-rolled coil (HRC) nationwide under Mysteel’s assessed also lost ground last week to reach Yuan 3,743/t including the 13% VAT as of March 29, lower by Yuan 122/t from one week before.

Downstream users were inactive in placing new orders, as they would like to adopt a wait and see approach, given the weakness in both physical and futures markets.

HRC inventories at traders’ warehouses emptied at a slower pace last week, with the volume at the commercial warehouses in the 55 Chinese cities under Mysteel’s regular tracking reaching 4.66 million tonnes as of March 28, down just 0.6% on week as against the on-week fall of 3.4% over the prior week.

The story is jointly published by Mysteel Global and Yuan Talks.