SteelOrbis has been informed that Chinese mills’ export offer prices for wire rod have moved sideways in the past week following a stable trend in the previous week to $455-460/mt FOB. “A lot of construction activities have been halted in the overseas markets, resulting in some Chinese wire rod producers no longer giving export offer prices amid the improvement in demand and decreases seen in inventories in the local market,” a trader said. It has been heard that it is still possible to get discounts of about $5/mt, but this in any case will not result in a demand improvement. “The Philippines market is totally asleep,” a local trader told SteelOrbis.
Jiangsu Province-based Shagang Group has raised its offer prices for rebar, high-speed wire rod and bar-in-coil by RMB 50/mt ($7.05/mt), RMB 70/mt ($9.9/mt) and RMB 70/mt ($9.9/mt) for the March 21-31 period, respectively.
As of Thursday, March 26, rebar futures at the Shanghai Future Exchange are standing at RMB 3,455/mt ($489/mt), decreasing by RMB 73/mt ($10/mt) or 2 percent since March 19.
$1 = RMB 7.0692