Chinese Steel Market Highlights-Week 33

This week Chinese steel market continued to remain filled with optimistic sentiments observing further rise in steel prices.Re-bar prices hit the highest this week by the increase of USD 57/MT. Major steel producers like Baosteel has announced price hike in flat steel for September . Coking coal prices is likely to cross USD 200/MT on supply disruption and robust demand from Chinese steelmakers. However iron ore prices remained on higher side.

Chinese spot iron ore prices crossed USD 76/MT CFR mark – Benchmark index in China for Fe 62% fines prices increased and crossed USD 76/MT, CFR mark this week. However towards weekend it fell marginally to USD 75/MT, CFR.. Pellet premium remained stable at USD 29.5/DMT, CFR China. Iron ore inventory at Chinese major ports fell by 2.5 MnT W-o-W to 137 MnT.

Coking Coal prices speculated to hit USD 200/MT-Closure of 4 mines in Queensland region and the series of supply disruptions in Australia and Russia clearly indicates that the prices will show upward trend owing to strong demand and supply constraints.However domestic prices of coking coal have increased due to strong demand.

Also Imported Coking coal prices recorded the increase of USD 11.5/MT on FoB basis.The latest offer for the Premium HCC is assessed at USD 192.5/MT FoB Australia against USD 179.75/MT, FoB compared with previous week.

Chinese domestic billet prices increased further – Chinese domestic billet prices increased further and rose to RMB 3,850/MT (ex-works). Global market continues to witness insufficient supply of Chinese billets. Billet export prices are witnessing hike owing to improved demand and shortage of billet in global market. Chinese billet export assessment was around USD 530/MT, FoB.

China’s HRC export offers hit 3 years high-Chinese HRC export offers is moving rapidly in the upward direction and have reported 3 years high.Nation has again raised their HRC export offers by USD 20/MT on higher prices prevailing in the domestic market.

Currently HRC commercial grade ASTM A36 export offers are prevailing in the range of USD 520-540/MT,FoB China.Meanwhile prices of HRC in domestic market are heard in the range of RMB 4,070-4,100/MT.CRC export offers are in range of USD 565-575/MT,FoB basis.

Chinese Re-bar export report substantial increase of USD 57/MT over robust in domestic demand – Chinese rebar export offers have surged significantly by USD 57/MT amid boost in domestic market and futures. The fresh offers are assessed at USD 545-555/MT FoB main port against USD 490-495/MT,FoB China.The rise in re-bar offers is also supported by the growth in the infrastructure which grew by 20% since start of CY 2017.

Steel Raw Material & Finished Steel Prices in China

Prices in USD/MT
Source-SteelMint Research