In the past week, the Chinese hot rolled coil (HRC) market has followed a downward trend. The average HRC prices in the main markets in China are as follows:
Product name |
Specification |
Category |
Average price (RMB/mt) |
Weekly change (RMB/mt) |
Price ($/mt) |
Weekly change ($/mt) |
HR |
5.75 mm x 1,500 mm |
Q235B |
4,697 |
-110 |
736 |
-17 |
HR |
2.75 mm x 1,250 mm |
Q235B |
4,823 |
-67 |
756 |
-11 |
As of September 21, the prices of Q235/S400 5.75 mm HRC in Shanghai, Tianjin and Lecong are respectively RMB 4,610/mt ($723/mt), RMB 4,650/mt ($729/mt) and RMB 4,830/mt ($757/mt). For Q235 2.75 mm HRC, prices stand at RMB 4,800/mt ($752/mt), RMB 4,720/mt ($740/mt) and RMB 4,950/mt ($776/mt) in the abovementioned cities. All prices include 17 percent VAT ($1 = RMB 6.38).
In Chinese HRC market, under the influence of low end-user demand and low volume bookings of traders, the transaction volume has failed to impress. Moreover, with recent negative macro-economic factors, the market capital has largely tightened; so traders continuously decrease their offers and withdraw capital from the market causing market prices to decline. In the past week, price decrease in China's main HRC markets has accelerated as compared to the previous week.
Although most traders are not recently booking HRC from mills, previous orders are delivered as usual. Thus, as of September 16 aggregate HRC inventory in the main Chinese markets totaled 4,371,170 mt, indicating an increase of 21,710 mt week on week; while HRC inventory in the Shanghai market amounted to 1,578,180 mt, up 14,500 mt week on week.
Summing up, it is expected that Chinese HRC market will continue to trend downwards.