Posted on 15 Sep 2026
Billet prices in Tangshan in North China's Hebei province lost steam during September 7-13, with Mysteel assessing the price of Q235 150mm square billet in the city at Yuan 3,000/tonne ($447/t) EXW and including the 13% VAT on September 13, retreating by Yuan 40/t on week.
Behind the price decline was the widening supply glut of the semis in the Tangshan market last week, Mysteel Global noted.
However, pressured by the subdued billet demand from local re-rollers and weakening ferrous futures, the mills opted to significantly lower ex-works prices for the semis by Yuan 30/t last Friday, which greatly worsened their profit margins, Mysteel Global understood.
Despite the smaller margins, billet output in Tangshan apparently increased last week. Though Mysteel has no firm data, the mills' losses from finished steel sales and mounting operations of blast furnaces led Tangshan mills to allocate more hot metal to billet production.
Specifically, the volume of billets sold or exported in Tangshan and surrounding regions by the 21 local steel mills Mysteel monitors averaged 38,500 tonnes/day over September 4-10, gaining significantly by 16.7% or 5,500 t/d on week.
However, for the re-rollers their losses from selling finished steel items led them to scale back their production pace. Over September 3-9 the daily usage of semis among the 34 local re-rollers under Mysteel's tracking averaged 33,800 t/d, dropping further by 10.6% or 4,000 t/d on week.
But last week's dip in billet prices stimulated some purchasing activities among re-rollers, leading to a small inventory transfer from traders, Mysteel Global noted.
Retail billet inventories stockpiled among the three warehouses and two ports in Tangshan under Mysteel's tracking registered 1.52 million tonnes as of September 10, edging down by 1% or 14,800 tonnes on week, while the tonnage stored by the 34 sampled re-rollers increased by 3.5% or 23,000 tonnes on week to 675,500 tonnes as of September 9.
Tangshan billet prices are expected to witness further declines this week, according to a Mysteel analyst. Deep losses from selling finished steel items are likely to further uplift billet supply among upstream steelmakers and suppress billet demand among downstream re-rollers at the same time. But strengthening cost-side support would limit the downside for billet prices.
Source:Mysteel Global
