Posted on 07 Jul 2026
Billet prices in Tangshan in North China's Hebei province fluctuated within a narrow band during June 29-June 5, with Mysteel assessing the price of Q235 150mm square billet in the city at Yuan 2,960/t ($436/t) EXW and including the 13% VAT on July 5, unchanged on week.
Tangshan steelmakers were suffering greater losses on billet sales last week, another Mysteel survey showed, which led many to allocate more hot metal to production of other steel items such as strips. This has tightened local billet supply to some extent, Mysteel noted in its weekly report.
Specifically, the volume of semis sold or exported over June 26-July 2 by the 21 steelmakers in Tangshan and surrounding areas under Mysteel's tracking declined by 2.3% or 1,000 tonnes/day to average 41,600 t/d.
On the demand side, billet consumption witnessed a sharp recovery last week, with the tonnage of billet used by the 34 re-rollers under Mysteel's tracking averaged 38,800 t/d over June 25-July 1, rebounding by 20.1% or 6,500 t/d on week.
Although the reason for the jump is not clear from the survey data, it could reflect the low basis for comparison when operations at many re-rollers were disrupted for several days by a work-safety blitz conducted by local authorities, Mysteel Global noted.
Moreover, the profits those re-rollers enjoyed from finished steel sales improved slightly over the week, enticing some of them to restock low-priced billet cargoes, Mysteel noted.
The pickup in spot transactions has led to persistent drawdown in retail inventories of the semis. Billet stocks held in the three commercial warehouses and two ports in Tangshan under Mysteel's survey totaled 2.11 million tonnes as of July 2, dropping by 3.8% or 83,700 tonnes on week.
Higher billet consumption has led to lower billet stocks in re-rollers' yards. The tonnage of billet held by the 34 surveyed re-rollers in Tangshan had dropped significantly by 10.9% or 64,200 tonnes on week to 523,000 tonnes by July 1.
Tangshan billet prices are seen staying rangebound this week. Both billet supply and demand are likely to trend downwards as some steelmakers plan to conduct maintenance on their blast furnaces, while some re-rollers are also scheduled to suspend operations in the short run in response to elevated in-hand stocks of finished steel.
Source:Mysteel Global
