During the past week, China's common carbon medium plate market fell, with other products in the domestic medium plate market being basically stable.
Product name |
Specification |
Category |
Average price (RMB/mt) |
Weekly change (RMB/mt) |
Price ($/mt) |
Weekly change ($/mt) |
Common carbon medium plate |
20 mm |
Q235 |
4,480 |
-30 |
675 |
-5 |
Low alloy medium plate |
20 mm |
Q345 |
4,725 |
- |
712 |
- |
Shipbuilding plate |
16 mm |
CCS A/B |
4,923 |
- |
741 |
- |
Currently, Tianjin Iron and Steel raised its medium plate prices, with ex-work prices of Q235 20 mm plate standing at RMB 4,450/mt ($670/mt), additionally offering a discount of RMB 50/mt ($7/mt) for customers who completed the negotiated purchase volume. Meanwhile, the introduction of this policy failed to support the spot market of domestic medium plate market. After the continued faster growth of the market prices of medium plates in the previous two weeks, transactions volume continued to shrink in this week, and so, most traders lowered quotations to make deals. (All above prices including 17 percent VAT, $1=RMB 6.64)
Overall, traders are more eager to sell, thus, there is an increased bargaining power, which led to an overall price level decrease and to a chaos in market quotations. Because of the limited actual demand in domestic medium plate market, the fallen prices did not make the transactions better. Meanwhile, some traders consider that based on the current stable raw materials prices and on the considerable increase of the rebar prices, prices of medium plate are unlikely to observe significant drop in the coming period.
On the whole, under such weak transaction situation, China's medium plate market will still adjust in a weak state, with limited space to drop.