China: Steel scrap prices firm despite rising stocks
China’s domestic steel scrap market remained generally stable over the week of January 14-21, with Mysteel’s steel scrap price index assessed at Yuan ...
"The domestic steel scrap market is grinding towards the last few days before the holidays start," a Shanghai-based market watcher remarked, as "many electric-arc-furnace (EAF) mills and steel scrap traders are all withdrawing earlier from the market to have a longer CNY holiday break," she added. China's official CNY holiday runs over January 31-February 6.
Consequently, steel scrap stocks at the 61 Chinese EAF and blast furnace (BF) producers under Mysteel's weekly survey grew for the fifth week on lower consumption and steady bookings earlier, rising by another 178,200 tonnes or 5% on week to 3.76 million tonnes as of January 20, a new high since February 2021.
The tonnage will be sufficient to cover the mills for 21.2 days of consumption, or one day longer on week, as their daily steel scrap consumption had declined by 4.4% on week to 2,824.3 tonnes/day on average.
With only a few days to go before the CNY holiday starts and with their sufficient stocks, only some BF mills are still booking to secure more deliveries ahead of the break, as most integrated mills will maintain normal operations during the CNY holiday. Steel scrap deliveries to the 61 surveyed steelmakers under Mysteel's regular survey declined by 2% on week to about 3,253 t/d over January 14-21.
With more and more EAF mills and scrap traders temporarily withdrawing from the market for the CNY break, domestic steel scrap prices are unlikely to fluctuate to any great degree in the near term, Mysteel Global predicted.
Written by Lindsey Liu, liulingxian@mysteel.com
This article has been published under an exchange agreement between MySteel Global and SteelMint.
