China qualified yards' scrap stocks down 7.3% m-o-m in Nov

The stocks of processed and unprocessed steel scrap held by the 293 licensed steel scrapyards across China edged down for the fourth straight month during November, falling by another 7.3% on month, Mysteel's latest monthly survey has found. Scrap traders' concentrated deliveries to mills were again mainly responsible for the monthly decline in stocks.

As of November 30, the scrap yards - all qualified by the country's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology - were holding 780,300 tonnes of processed and unprocessed scrap. Within the total, inventories of processed scrap were lower by 8.1% on month at 525,000 tonnes, and those of unprocessed were down by 5.5% on month at 255,300 tonnes, the survey showed.

 

Last month, the softening of finished steel demand as winter loomed dampened domestic steel-market sentiment and caused prices to slump. In the wake of this retreat, steel scrap prices also showed signs of weakening, Mysteel Global noted.

As of November 30, for example, China's national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar under Mysteel's assessment had eased Yuan 587/tonne ($92.3/t) on month to Yuan 4,774/t, while Mysteel's steel scrap price index had edged down by Yuan 398.5/t on month to Yuan 3,262.3/t on delivery, both including the 13% VAT.

Besides the weakening demand for steel, production curbs imposed on steelmakers last month as part of city-backed pollution-reduction measures, especially in North China, also prevented domestic mills from lifting production. This led scrap demand among most Chinese mills including both blast-furnace (BF) and electric-arc-furnace (EAF) makers to weaken further, Mysteel Global noted.

In tandem, the total scrap consumption among the 61 BF and EAF mills under Mysteel's regular survey decreased in November for the sixth month by another 2.4% on month or 17.6% on year to 5.16 million tonnes, the lowest usage rate so far this year.

The sharp falls in scrap prices plus the mills' decreasing demand, panicked scrap traders and prompted some to speed up deliveries to their steelmaker customers to limit their exposure to pricing risks, Mysteel's monthly survey showed.

Written by Lindsey Liu, liulingxian@mysteel.com

This article has been published under an exchange agreement between MySteel Global and SteelMint.