Stocks of the five major finished steel products at the 184 Chinese steel mills under Mysteel’s weekly survey reversed down by 2.6% on week over July 1-7, thanks to the improvement in demand and lower steel output. Mill stocks had risen during each of the four prior weeks.
Total inventories of the five major steel products comprising rebar, wire rod, hot-rolled coil, cold-rolled coil and medium plate at the surveyed mills reached 6.56 million tonnes as of July 7, down 177,100 tonnes on week. Stocks of most steel products decreased by varying degrees on week except for the 3.4% on-week rise of cold-rolled coil, the survey showed.
Sentiment in the domestic steel market had improved with the stronger performance of steel futures. On July 7, the price of the most-traded rebar contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) for October delivery had gained for the third day and closed the daytime trading session at Yuan 5,439/tonne ($840/t), higher by Yuan 176/t compared with the settlement price on the prior day.
“Speculative demand saw some recovery over the past week while demand from end-users remained lacklustre with the high temperatures in most regions of China,” a market source in Shanghai said.
Mysteel’s other survey showed that the daily trading volume of construction steel comprising rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among the 237 Chinese traders it tracks averaged 209,864 tonnes/day over July 1-7, up 30,738 t/d on week.
On the other hand, finished steel production among the surveyed 184 mills declined for the third successive week over July 1-7, slipping by another 1% from the prior week to 10.5 million tonnes, the survey showed.
Steel prices in China’s physical market also recovered to some extent thanks to the healthier sales. As of July 7, the national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar, for example, had increased for the third working day to Yuan 5,044/t including the 13% VAT, up Yuan 105/t on week, according to Mysteel’s assessment.
However, stocks of the five major steel items at the commercial warehouses Mysteel checks in 132 cities nationwide also accumulated further over July 2-8 to top 23.1 million tonnes, though the on-week growth slowed to 1.2% from the previous week’s 2.3% rise with the improvement in demand.
Written by Nancy Zheng, zhangwd@mysteel.com
Table 1 Five major steel products stocks at mills (Jul 1-7)
| Product | Volume (‘000 t) | WoW (%) | MoM (%) | YoY (%) |
| Rebar | 3,426.4 | -3.7% | 9.1% | 0.4% |
| Wire rod | 939.2 | -1.3% | 28.5% | 24.3% |
| HR sheet | 1,057.2 | -3.7% | 1.6% | 2.5% |
| CR sheet | 346.0 | 3.4% | 6.4% | 2.0% |
| Medium plate | 789.9 | -0.6% | -1.1% | -10.7% |
| Total | 6,558.7 | -2.6% | 8.7% | 2.1% |
Table 2 Five major steel products stocks at traders (Jul 2-8)
| Product | Volume (million t) | WoW (%) | MoM (%) | YoY (%) |
| Rebar | 11.55 | 1.7% | 8.8% | -1.8% |
| Wire rod | 3.20 | 0.6% | 4.9% | -12.6% |
| HR sheet | 3.92 | 0.9% | 10.8% | 15.6% |
| CR sheet | 1.89 | 0.6% | 2.4% | 5.8% |
| Medium plate | 2.50 | 1.1% | 9.3% | 34.0% |
| Total | 23.05 | 1.2% | 8.1% | 2.7% |
Note: Mysteel has started publishing the new set of data regarding traders’ steel inventories since March 19 2020 to better represent the market with bigger sample sizes.
Rebar and wire rod: Sample size is increased to 429 warehouses in 132 Chinese cities from the previous 215 warehouses in 35 cities.
Hot-rolled coil (HRC): Sample size is increased to 194 warehouses in 55 cities from the previous 138 warehouses in 33 cities.
Cold-rolled coil (CRC): Sample size is increased to 182 warehouses in 29 cities from the previous 134 warehouses in 26 cities.
Medium plate: Sample size is increased to 217 warehouses in 65 cities from the previous 132 warehouses in 31 cities.
This article has been published under an article exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and SteelMint.
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