Posted on 12 Aug 2021
The Tangshan Q235 150mm square billet price in North China had been on a downtrend since the beginning of August, and as of August 6, the fall accelerated, slumping Yuan 190/tonne ($29.3/t) on week to Yuan 5,080/t EXW and including the 13% VAT, as demand had immediately retreated on the latest round of production ban on the local steel re-rollers since August 3.
In response to the forecast ozone pollution over August 4-9, the local government has imposed another round of temporary restrictive measures on its local industrial sectors including curbing on steel mills’ sintering plants, lengthening coking time at local coke plants other than the suspension on the steel re-rollers, all starting late night of August 3.
All the measures are still in place as of August 10 due to the persistent threat of ozone pollution, and the termination will be until further notice, according to the government release on Tuesday.
“Re-rollers’ demand for billet has quickly died down with the new ban as well as the concentrated buying earlier on when they were able to produce over August 1-3 and the prices had also been relatively low,” a local industrial source commented, and she expected that “such bans will probably been imposed frequently and ad hoc for the remainder of this year”.
Billet stocks at Tangshan’s 55 steel re-rollers, thus, reversed up 107,600 tonnes or 30.2% on week to 464,200 tonnes as of August 4, while their billet consumption averaged 513,000 tonnes/day July 29-August 4, or down for the second week by another 11,600 t/d on week, and only slightly over half of what they consume during the normal operational days, Mysteel’s survey showed.
Slack demand saw billet stocks at 14 trading warehouses in Tangshan including two ports grow for the sixth consecutive week by another 24,900 tonnes or 3.7% on week to 700,600 tonnes as of August 5, or a new high since March 18, according to Mysteel’s other survey on the local billet market.
Source:Mysteel Global
