Posted on 01 Aug 2022
Inventories of finished stainless steel at commercial warehouses in Wuxi and Foshan, China's two core stainless trading hubs, reversed down over July 22-28 after growing for the previous two weeks, falling by 2.8% on week to 641,451 tonnes and hitting the lowest since mid-February, according to Mysteel's latest weekly survey.
Among the total, stainless stocks in Wuxi in East China's Jiangsu province decreased by 3.8% on week, as against the on-week rise of 4.6% over the prior week, and the volume in Foshan in South China's Guangdong province also retreated by 4% on week after the previous on-week climb of 7.6%, the survey showed.
The decrease was partly attributed to the limited volumes of stainless products delivered to traders' warehouses. Besides, "some end-users returned to the market for replenishment this week to fulfill their immediate needs, given that their inventories of stainless coils and longs at hand were rather low," a market source in Wuxi said.
However, for the time being many end-users are not willing to purchase too many stainless products, as they prefer to keep their stocks at a relatively low level when price trends in the domestic market are unclear.
Also during the survey week, to facilitate sales in the physical market, some Chinese stainless traders decided to concede some discount on their offering prices - even though they've been operating at a loss - because month's end is approaching and they needed funds to repay loans, Mysteel Global learned.
China's domestic 300-series stainless prices continued trending downwards this week, but the on-week fall was slower than the previous week as austenitic grades enjoyed cost support, Mysteel Global noted. Global nickel prices showed some signs of recovery and domestic nickel pig iron (NPI) prices have also kept firm recently.
As of July 28, the price of 304/2B 2mm stainless cold-rolled coil in Wuxi was assessed by Mysteel at Yuan 17,500/tonne ($2,594/t) in-warehouse and including the 13% VAT, down Yuan 100/t on week against the on-week drop of Yuan 750/t during the prior week.
On the same day, the price of three-month nickel futures on the London Metal Exchange closed at $21,935/t, higher by $457/t from one week before, the exchange's data showed.
The price of 8-10% grade NPI in East China's Jiangsu province under Mysteel's assessment came in at Yuan 1,320/mtu including delivery and the 13% VAT as of July 28, unchanged since July 13.
Source:Mysteel Global
