Over the past week China's domestic medium plate market has on the whole moved steadily in an upward direction.
Product name | Specification | Category | Average price (RMB/mt) | Weekly change (RMB/mt) | Price ($/mt) | Weekly change ($/mt) |
Common carbon medium plate | 20 mm | Q235 | 3,603 | +56 | 520 | +1 |
Low alloy medium plate | 20 mm | Q345 | 3,725 | +20 | 546 | +3 |
16 mm | CCS A/B | 3,913 | -50 | 574 | -7 |
As a result of the reduced arrivals of materials from second tier mills, medium plate inventory in China showed a minor decline over the past week. Remarkably, traders now hold most materials in the market, with limited amounts of plate stocks held by end-users and mills. Given this distribution of materials, it will be more difficult for the market to indicate a rising trend in the future; however, the limited quantities of materials in the possession of end-users and mills will prevent the market from experiencing any sharp slump.
In recent days, the domestic medium plate market has been impacted by the price movements of hot rolled coil and other steel products. Currently, the plate market lacks sufficient rising momentum, while at the same time there is no major cause for it to experience a strong downturn. As a result, the current market is increasingly characterized by a general stagnancy. The market is no longer determined by steel trading activity alone, but also shows the influence of the steel futures market and the overall macroeconomic situation as well. Meanwhile, the Chinese mills have made a slight upward adjustment of RMB 30/mt ($4/mt) to their ex-factory prices - an increase which is acceptable to most traders at the current time.
The domestic shipbuilding plate market has been characterized by slack trading activity throughout the past week. According to the latest statistics, China's completed shipbuilding output totaled 27.78 million deadweight tons in the first nine months of this year, accounting for 31.2 percent of the global market, and coming second only to South Korea. Meanwhile, China's newly-undertaken ship orders in this period amounted to 16.92 million deadweight tons, constituting 70.2 percent of new orders globally. Generally speaking, China's shipbuilding industry is still in a difficult situation and faces very tough competition.