China: Shagang lifts longs list prices by $7/t for mid-Jan sales

Shagang Group (Shagang), China's leading privately-owned steelmaker headquartered in East China's Jiangsu province, has decided to lift its list prices of rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil by Yuan 50/tonne ($7.4/t) for domestic sales during the middle 10 days of January, the company announced on January 11.

With the latest pricing policy, Shagang's list price of HRB400 16-25mm rebar, thus climbs further to Yuan 4,200/t, following a Yuan 100/t rise in the previous period, Mysteel Global notes.

Meanwhile, the steel giant's latest announcement also puts an end to its four successive roll-overs of wire rod and bar-in-coil list prices, with the list prices of HPB300 6-10mm high-speed wire rod and HRB400 8-10mm bar-in-coil moving up to Yuan 4,410/t and Yuan 4,500/t respectively. All prices are in terms of EXW and including the 13% VAT.

Shagang's new price adjustment largely reflected the improved sentiment in the Chinese steel market and the continuous strengthening of domestic steel prices, according to an industry watcher in Shanghai.

For example, the HRB400E 20mm dia rebar price in Nanjing, the capital city of Jiangsu province, had gained by Yuan 70/t from December 30 to reach Yuan 4,250/t including the 13% VAT on January 10, according to Mysteel's assessment.

"As the Chinese New Year holiday is just 10 days away, the steel trading will gradually quiet down with many market participants having suspended their business to enjoy the holiday break," he added.

Mysteel's survey across the 237 Chinese steel trading houses it tracks regularly showed that their daily trading volume of rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil averaged merely 83,850 tonnes/day in early January, falling by a large 25.2% or 28,258 t/d from the average over the previous 11 days.

Written by Rong Zhang, zhangronga@mysteel.com

Note: This article has been written in accordance with an article exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and SteelMint.