The stocks of finished steel products held by trading houses across China grew for the second week over June 18-24, rising by 1.7% on week, according to Mysteel’s latest stocks survey, suggesting that steel demand from end-users is easing during the rainy season and hot summer weather.
Total inventories of the five major products comprising rebar, wire rod, hot-rolled coil (HRC), cold-rolled coil and medium plate held by traders in the 132 Chinese cities Mysteel monitors increased by 370,900 tonnes on week to 22.3 million tonnes as of June 24.
All five major items continued to show on-week rises in their inventories, according to the survey data. Among these, rebar and HRC stocks gained the most, with the former rising by 142,900 tonnes on week to around 11 million tonnes, while inventories of the latter mounted by 134,100 tonnes on week to 3.8 million tonnes.
Meanwhile, finished steel output retreated last week after three weeks of rises, with production of the five major items over June 17-23 under Mysteel’s survey declining by 38,400 tonnes to 11.1 million tonnes.
Some mills had conducted maintenance on their steelmaking facilities in response to contracting profit margins and weakening end-user demand amid the rainy season in South and East China, market sources said.
The inventories of finished steel products in Mysteel’s former smaller sample across 35 cities also moved up, with the volume gaining 216,500 tonnes on week to reach 14.5 million tonnes as of June 24.
Written by Rong Zhang, zhangronga@mysteel.com
This article has been published under an article exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and SteelMint.
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