China's rebar price at 4-month high

On September 22, China's national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar assessed by Mysteel climbed up to its four-month high of Yuan 5,754/tonne ($892/t) including the 13% VAT, or up for the fourth working day by Yuan 86/t, as demand had been recovering while output had been declining, and spot sales of construction steel had been growing slowly and gradually, up another 0.7% on the day.

As of Wednesday, the daily construction steel trading volume among China's 237 traders under Mysteel's tracking showed that the tonnage including rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil was totaled 232,260 tonnes, up for the second working day by another 1,639 t/d on the day.

The spot trading volume had stayed above the 200,000 t/d threshold for the fifth working day, indicating that steel demand has entered its robust period in autumn as well as due to the fact that some end-users and traders had decided to stock up ahead of the long National Day holiday over October 1-7, market sources shared.

On September 22, the Q235 150mm square billet price in North China's Tangshan, an indicator of the Chinese steel market sentiment, remained unchanged for the second day at Yuan 5,230/t EXW including the VAT.

Higher spot steel prices had boosted the market sentiment, and the most-traded January 2022 rebar contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange recovered from a one-day fall too by September 22, closing the daytime trading session at Yuan 5,656/t, or up Yuan 161/t or 2.93% from the settlement price on September 17.

On Wednesday, Mysteel SEADEX 62% Australian Fines rebounded dramatically by $14.5/dmt from Tuesday to $105.4/dmt CFR Qingdao, though many market sources doubted the sustainability of the recovery in the longer term.

Written by Villanelle Xia, xiayi@mysteel.com

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