As per the market sources, after the National Day Holidays from 1 -7 October in China, the improvements in air quality have allowed most Chinese steel mills and GE manufacturers to resume normal production.
The better air readings have led the emergency restrictions on blast furnaces, sintering machines, shaft furnaces and lime kilns to be gradually lifted in some regions surrounding the capital Beijing. These included restraints on mills in Tangshan and Handan cities, China’s two largest steel producing hubs in Hebei province, and on those in the Tianjin municipality, in East China’s Shandong province and in Central China’s Henan province.
Many steel mills in these regions have now returned their facilities to the normal level of operations prior to the emergency restrictions taking effect. Subsequently, most of the GE manufacturers have also resumed production and have once again started to invest in the electrodes production.
However, those steelmakers whose operations were subject to severe restrictions since late September had relatively high stocks of electrodes. Thus, they are unlikely to purchase GE in large volumes as of now but would procure only as needed, with some even holding a wait-and-see attitude to the market. In case of EAF mills in other regions also, the market activities have not picked up resulting which electrodes demand have not seen any major uptick in demand.
The market supply of GE still exceeds demand and the price continues to remain weak. The current price of 450mm HP grade GE are heard to be in the range of RMB 13,000 – 15,000/MT (USD 1,825 – 2,100/MT) whereas that of UHP grade electrodes of size 500mm are in the range of RMB 15,000 – 22,000/MT (USD 2,100 – 3,090/MT)and 600mm are in the range of RMB 42,000 – 53,000/MT (USD 5,900 – 7,400/MT).
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