The price of high-carbon ferrochrome with 55% Cr content in North China’s Inner Mongolia fell to its nearly three-month low as of July 24, and trading was thin last week as the market were awaiting the bidding prices from the domestic stainless-steel producers for August supplies.
The price dipped for the ninth week over July 20-24, down another Yuan 100/tonne ($14.3/t) or 1.7% on week to Yuan 5,750/t EXW and including 13% VAT, according to Mysteel’s assessments.
“Both Ferro Chrome traders and small- or medium-sized mills have been reluctant to buy ferro chrome, as they are waiting for the clear signals from the large stainless producers when they release their bidding prices for August ferro chrome supplies,” a Shanghai-based market source said, explaining the retreat in the spot trading volume last week, which, unavoidably, imposed pressure on the spot ferro chrome prices, she added.
China’s stainless market in is a traditional off-season in most of the third quarter because of the adverse weather including the heavy rains and high temperature, and the demand for stainless steelmaking raw materials, thus, is usually in a lull too, Mysteel Global understands.
China’s less demand for ferro chrome has imposed pressure on other nearby countries such as India too, Mysteel Global noted, and its domestic ferro chrome prices have been softening recently with more supplies in the domestic market when exports to China have eased.
India is another major supplier to China either for ferro chrome or charge chromium, and it is a net exporter of ferro chrome with 50% of the production sold abroad.
On the continuing slip in the ferro chrome prices, China’s price of the 42% grade South African chrome ore at the Tianjin port of North China fell to its four-month low of Yuan 27.25/dmtu as of July 24, down for the fourth week by another Yuan 1.75/dmtu or 6% on week, according to Mysteel’s database.
As of July 24, imported chrome ore stocks at China’s six major ports reversed down 68,000 tonnes or 1.8% on week to 3.75 million tonnes after one week of increase, but the volume was still 39.4% higher on year, according to Mysteel’s data.
(This article has been published under the article exchange agreement between SteelMint Research and Mysteel Global.)
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