Shagang Group, China’s largest private steel producer in East China’s Jiangsu province, announced on Tuesday it is rolling over all its long steel prices for sales over January 21-30, amid the steel-market stability overall ahead of the week-long Chinese New Year (CNY) holiday beginning January 24.
Therefore, Shagang will continue to offer its HRB400 16-25mm dia rebar priced at Yuan 3,880/tonne ($563/t), its HPB300 6-10mm high-speed wire rod at Yuan 3,890/t and its HRB400 8-10mm bar-in-coil at Yuan 3,930/t, all in terms of EXW and including the 13% VAT.
In its prior pricing term for January 11-20 sales, Shagang, the largest long steel producer in China, cut Yuan 80/t off all its long steel sales prices, as Mysteel Global reported.
Shagang’s decision came as no surprise to the market, as steel business nationwide has essentially ground to halt this week with the imminent CNY break, market sources indicated.
For example, Mysteel’s HRB400 20mm dia rebar benchmark price in Shanghai, an important market for Shagang’s steel products, has been frozen at Yuan 3,750/t including the 13% VAT for 19 consecutive days as of January 21, according to Mysteel’s databank.
“The market has been stable and quiet. Most traders have placed their orders and stocked up products for sales after the CNY holiday break,” a Shanghai-based analyst commented.
“As there is not much actual trading, price movements will be minimal,” he said.
Chinese steel traders began shutting their offices since early January to beat the traffic and have a longer break, the Shanghai analyst remarked, with the last few “on their way home” on Tuesday.
Indeed, the latest available data of Mysteel’s daily tracker of construction steel trading showed that on January 17, the trading of rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil was only 14,181 tonnes/day, a new low since February 15 2016 and less than 10% of the normal trading for a winter’s day of around 150,000 t/d, as Mysteel Global reported.
The daily investigation has been suspended since January 19 due to the slack trading and will not resume until February 3, as reported.
Over January 21-30, Shagang has kept all the premiums for its other products unchanged. Consequently, the mill is still charging an extra Yuan 160/t for HRB400 10mm dia rebar, Yuan 100/t more for 12mm dia rebar, an extra Yuan 250/t for both its 36mm dia and 40mm dia rebar, Yuan 30/t more for its anti-seismic rebar, another Yuan 350/t for HRB500 14-25mm dia rebar, and an extra Yuan 300/t for the HRB400 6mm dia bar-in-coil on top of the respective base prices of rebar, and bar-in-coil.
This article has been published under an article exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and SteelMint.
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