Posted on 27 Jul 2026
The Tangshan billet market has seen stagnant trading activities due to production restrictions for local re-rollers and blast furnaces, alongside volatile steel futures, Kallanish notes.
Local mills have been required to restrict production from 25 July to 29 July due to the 50th anniversary of the Tangshan earthquake, with blast furnaces subject to a 20% production cut.
Additionally, one major billet supplier has completed a ten-day overhaul of a strip production line last Thursday and resumed production on Friday last week. This has resulted in more hot metal production being allocated to its strips production which has a capacity of 6,000 tonnes/day.
Meanwhile, local re-rollers have also suspended production until 29 July. They are still purchasing low-priced billets so they can roll once production resumes. One re-roller told Kallanish that he bought 2,000t of spot billets at CNY 3,025/tonne ($447/t) on Monday while the prevailing offers were at around CNY 3,040/t.
Spot Tangshan billet prices stood at around CNY 3,035/t on Monday afternoon, little changed on-week, while the most traded October 2026 rebar contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange dropped CNY 18/t week-on-week. Most sellers were unwilling to sell billets at below CNY 3,040/t on Monday, while most buyers were also unwilling to buy above CNY 3,030/t.
Market inventory of Tangshan billet is declining at a faster pace, down about 5% w-o-w versus 2.5% the week earlier, with Monday's inventory at approximately 1.24 million tonnes.
Source:Kallanish
