SteelOrbis Shanghai
Influenced by the expanding export volume, Chinese
billet prices continued to increase little by little throughout the week. Although domestic commercial activity has improved, it is still not enough to boost the prices.
Steel mills in southern and northern regions received more inquiries from abroad, especially from South East Asia for their billets. The deal price of common carbon
billet is at around $370/mt FOB; and that of 20MnSi reached $378/mt FOB, with brisk commercial activity. Therefore, domestic market prices have also increased by RMB 20-50/mt ($3-6). However, the domestic finished steel market is still hovering at a low level and most rolling mills are prudent about stocking billets. For example in Tangshan, apart from the relatively large quantity of purchases made by narrow steel strip and section steel producers, most of the regional steel mills are purchasing billets only when they need it for their
production. Thus, the market performance is flat.
In such a situation, cautious about the future, Chinese
billet producers dare not to hike their prices by a big margin.
On the
slab side, domestic
slab prices did not move up or down last week, but the commerce has improved. A steel mill in Tangshan reflected that, they had almost no domestic contracts on
slab sales in the earlier weeks, but beginning from the previous week, they have already inked several contracts with domestic buyers.
Laiwu Steel, Jinan Steel and other steel mills have also seen a slight growth in their trade volumes.
It was reported by South American media sources that No. 3 blast furnace of Brazilian CSN exploded again on August 10 right after its restarting in June. The company denied the explosion. However, if there has really been an explosion, and if it is a serious one, then that would support Chinese
slab exports.
In addition, some
semis producers completed overhaul works and commenced operating their rolling lines. Therefore, the supply of semi finished steel in the domestic market will gradually decline; probably leading to an increase in
China's domestic semi finished steel trade.
Thanks to the rising demand brought by the better weather in
China and South East Asia recently, Chinese semi finished steel prices are expected to move steadily up.