Posted on 21 Nov 2025
Total stocks of five major finished steel items - rebar, wire rod, hot-rolled coil (HRC), cold-rolled coil (CRC) and medium plate - piled at commercial warehouses in 132 Chinese cities continued to move down over November 14-20, according to Mysteel's latest weekly survey.
The combined inventories slipped by a larger 2.6% or 436,000 tonnes on week to 16.65 million tonnes as of November 20, marking declines for five consecutive weeks, the survey results showed.
Among the five steel products, stocks of rebar and wire rod logged steeper drops by volume this week. Specifically, rebar stocks came in at 5.98 million tonnes as of November 20, lower by 3.6% or 226,000 tonnes from the prior week and hovering below the 6-million-tonne threshold again since August 7. Meanwhile, inventories of wire rod slid by a significant 6.8% or 108,900 tonnes on week to sit at 1.5 million tonnes by the same day.
The faster destocking this week can be primarily attributed to the temporary demand pickup driven by bullish market sentiment, especially on Monday, a Shanghai-based analyst told Mysteel Global. "The firm cost support, coupled with a sharp decline in finished steel output last week, greatly uplifted market sentiment on Monday, leading to broad gains in steel prices and boosting trading volumes in the physical market," she said.
The national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar jumped by Yuan 26/t on Monday to Yuan 3,268/t including the 13% VAT, and it further rose to Yuan 3,276/t on Wednesday, up by Yuan 44/t from a week ago.
The combined trading volume of rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among the 237 trading houses under Mysteel's tracking spiked by 28.4% or 29,541 t/d from last Friday to reach 133,662 tonnes/day on Monday, the highest level in six months. The strong performance also pushed the weekly average to 106,542 t/d over November 13-19, climbing by 9.2% or 8,987 t/d on week.
On the cost front, some leading steelmakers across China last Friday accepted the Yuan 50-55/tonne ($7-7.7/t) hikes in domestic metallurgical coke prices. This marked the fourth met coke price increase since early October to take effect nationwide, underpinning the domestic steel market to some extent, Mysteel Global reported.
Similarly, finished steel stocks held by traders in Mysteel's smaller sample across just 35 cities also posted a retreat, down by 3% or 455,900 tonnes on week to 10.29 million tonnes.
Source:Mysteel Global
