Posted on 14 Mar 2022
Shagang Group, China's largest privately-owned steelmaker in East China's Jiangsu province, will raise its list prices of rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil by a blanket Yuan 200/tonne ($31.6/t) for its mid-month sales period over March 11-20, the mill announced on March 11. The rises are mainly to reflect rises in production costs, but steel sales are very bad, a company official admitted.
With the latest pricing policy, Shagang's HRB400 16-25mm rebar is now priced at Yuan 5,200/tonne over March 11-20, while its HPB300 6-10mm wire rod and HRB400 8-10mm bar-in-coil are officially selling for Yuan 5,310/t and Yuan 5,400/t respectively. All prices are EXW and including the 13% VAT.
"We have no choice. We are forced to increase the prices as all raw materials prices have increased amid the surges in global commodity prices," one official of the company said. The increase is tabled reluctantly because steel demand has been poor recently due to slow progress being made on many construction projects, the primary steel consumers, he indicated.
Indeed, prices of the major steelmaking raw materials have all increased recently, Mysteel Global noted. In Shagang's case, the mill had just announced on March 7 that it was increasing its steel scrap procurement prices by Yuan 80/tonne effective from that day, as reported.
Steel scrap is one of the key raw materials for the steel giant's production as it is a leading EAF maker in China, hosting five such furnaces.
Chinese steelmakers in general are facing a dilemma currently, with production costs rising on the one hand, while on the other demand for their steel is poor, domestic mill sources said.
"Our profits now are only around Yuan 50-100/t, and we could not secure enough orders to maintain sustainable production," an official from another steel mill based in East China said.
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Shagang's premiums for other long products over March 11-20 |
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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 |
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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
