Posted on 22 Feb 2022
Shagang Group, China's largest privately-owned steel producer headquartered in East China's Jiangsu province, announced on Monday to roll over its ex-work prices of rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil from February 11-20 for sales over February 21-28. Steel mills in East China still tend to shore up prices, even though the market lacks further upward impetus in the near term, according to market sources.
With the latest price policy, Shagang's HRB400 16-25mm rebar will be still at Yuan 5,100/tonne ($807/t) over February 21-28, while its HPB300 6-10mm wire rod and HRB400 8-10mm bar-in-coil at Yuan 5,310/t and Yuan 5,400/t respectively.
"Market demand remains weak. Although some building sites have already resumed work after Chinese Lantern Festival (which fell on February 15 this year), many sites have yet to restart construction activity," a market source based in Nanjing, the capital city of Jiangsu, observed on Monday.
As of February 18 - the third working day after the Lantern Festival, Mysteel's survey across the 237 Chinese steel traders showed that their trading volumes of rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil had recovered to 119,855 tonnes/day, jumping 86.8% on day. However, the tonnage was still lower than that of 179,875 t/d on March 3 2021, which was also the third working day after last year's Lantern Festival.
The Nanjing source noted that local steel prices have remained unchanged since the moderate increase (of Yuan 10/t for rebar) last Friday, which "shows that the market is resisting further price hikes," she said.
In contrast to the rather stable price offers from those major Chinese steelmakers, offers from traders are already seen softening recently, Mysteel Global noted.
The transaction price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar in the spot market in Shanghai, an important trading hub in East China, for example, declined Yuan 80/t from 10 days ago to reach Yuan 4,860/t as of Monday morning, according to Mysteel's assessment.
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Shagang's premiums for other long products over Feb 21-28 |
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Specification |
Premium |
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HRB400 10mm dia rebar |
Yuan 160/t |
|
HRB400 12mm dia rebar |
Yuan 100/t |
|
HRB400 14mm dia rebar |
Yuan 30/t |
|
HRB400 28-32mm dia rebar |
Yuan 60/t |
|
HRB400 36mm/40mm dia rebar |
Yuan 250/t |
|
HRB500 14-25mm |
Yuan 300/t on top of HRB400 base prices |
|
HRB400 6mm dia bar-in-coil |
Yuan 300/t |
|
Anti-seismic rebar |
Yuan 30/t |
Source:Mysteel Global
