Steel industry awakens in March-end

The arrival of the spring made itself felt through the entire northern hemisphere with the sudden increase in especially flat steel products in the last two weeks. The demand has suddenly picked up, leading steel mills to increase their prices around the world. Hot rolled coil prices in S. Korea increased from $350-360/mt at the end of January to the current $450-460/mt level. Hot rolled coils exported from Ukraine to Israel increased from $385-390/mt CFR in mid-February to $470-475/mt CFR Israel level. Turkish Erdemir's hot rolled coil prices increased around $30/mt in the last two weeks and they are expected to increase further, soon. Russian hot rolled coil export prices for Far East increased from $360-370/ton FOB in the beginning of March to the current $390-400 level. Many Chinese mills have also increased their prices recently. CIS billet prices also increased recently, causing to an increase in finished steel prices especially in Southeast Asia. Even Japanese JFE Steel announced a price increase around 10 percent for April-June exports. Meanwhile the fourth round of iron ore price negotiations between Chinese Baosteel and the three musketeers – CVRD, BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto – began yesterday. This year, Japanese steelmakers are expecting to see the outcome of the negotiations between Chinese mills and the global iron miners, as Chinese mills were not quite happy with the outcome of the talks between Japanese mills and the global iron miners, leading to a 71.5 percent price hike. Meanwhile South Korea is expecting a revival in construction in order to melt high plate inventories piled up in February due to the increase in imports. Plate prices are continuing to increase both in Japan and China; therefore, S. Korean consumers and traders are lucky to have piled up their inventories in February. Global galvanized coil prices are still strong, and so are the zinc prices. Last week, the zinc prices reached to a record level in LME stock exchange and also Hindustan Zinc announced that it increased zinc prices by Rupee 1,600/ton ($36) to Rupee 127,100/ton ($2,853). Last week of March is expected to determine the global trends for the second quarter, basically.