Stocks of the five major finished steel products held by the 184 Chinese steel mills under Mysteel’s regular survey saw some accumulation over April 29-May 5 as consumption among end-users decreased because of the Labour Day holiday over May 1-5.
Mysteel’s latest weekly survey showed that total inventories of the five items comprising rebar, wire rod, hot-rolled coil, cold-rolled coil and medium plate at the surveyed mills’ yards reached 6.49 million tonnes as of May 5, reversing up 0.7% on week after sliding for ten consecutive weeks.
Among the total, stocks of rebar and wire rod declined by 3.2% and 3.1% respectively over April 29-May 5, while inventories of other steel products increased by varying degrees during the period amid the slowdown in demand, Mysteel Global noted.
“Some end-users halted operations over the five-day break, reducing their steel consumption during that period,” a market source in Shanghai said.
After falling steadily during the prior eight weeks, stocks of the five finished steel products at traders’ warehouses in the 132 cities Mysteel checks nationwide also grew slightly over April 30-May 6, rising by 0.3% on week to 24.55 million tonnes and reflecting the dip in steel consumption during the holiday.
However, most domestic steel mills maintained high production during the break, given the robust steel prices in the home market and the sufficient order volumes received. Over April 29-May 5, output of the five major items among the surveyed mills increased for the third week, rising by another 1.2% on week to a seven-month high of 10.9 million tonnes, the survey showed.
China’s domestic steel prices witnessed a significant rise during the Labour Day holiday driven by expectations of a decrease in production in the coming term.
As of May 6, the national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar was assessed at Yuan 5,489/tonne ($847/t) including the 13% VAT, jumping by Yuan 234/t from April 30, the last working day before the holiday and marking an all-time high since Mysteel started the survey in March 2011, according to Mysteel’s data.
Written by Nancy Zheng, zhengmm@mysteel.com
Edited by Russ McCulloch, russ.mcculloch@mysteel.com
Table 1 Five major steel products inventories at mills (Apr 29-May 5)
| Volume (‘000 t) | WoW (%) | MoM (%) | YoY (%) | |
| Rebar | 3,408.2 | -3.2% | -18.0% | -7.4% |
| Wire rod | 871.0 | -3.1% | -24.4% | -3.1% |
| HR sheet | 1,050.2 | 8.1% | 8.6% | -9.2% |
| CR sheet | 336.3 | 12.2% | 3.3% | -24.7% |
| Medium plate | 820.5 | 8.8% | 0.4% | -10.1% |
| Total | 6,486.2 | 0.7% | -12.6% | -8.6% |
Table 2 Five major steel products inventories at traders (Apr 30-May 6)
| Product | Volume (million t) | WoW (%) | MoM (%) | YoY (%) |
| Rebar | 12.66 | -1.5% | -18.8% | -8.4% |
| Wire rod | 4.14 | -3.0% | -19.5% | -21.0% |
| HR sheet | 3.69 | 7.4% | 0.1% | -16.5% |
| CR sheet | 1.84 | 1.9% | 4.3% | -10.4% |
| Medium plate | 2.22 | 5.0% | -0.3% | 24.2% |
| Total | 24.55 | 0.3% | -13.6% | -10.1% |
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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