China's rebar price eases further, spot sales rebound

China's national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar under Mysteel's assessment had eased further to Yuan 4,239/tonne ($621.4/t) as of February 13, down by another Yuan 21/t on day including the 13% VAT, while spot sales of construction steel recovered somewhat.

On Monday, the trading volume of construction steel including rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among 237 Chinese trading houses under Mysteel's tracking increased by 5,873 tonnes/day or 6.1% to 102,748 t/d.

Pessimistic sentiment pervaded the domestic rebar market yesterday after participants noting the weakening in rebar futures prices. The most-traded rebar contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange for May delivery, for example, declined below the threshold of Yuan 4,000/t, or losing Yuan 65/t or 1.6% from the settlement price oflast Friday to close the daytime trading session at Yuan 3,993/t on Monday.

Some steel mills pared their offering prices for rebar by Yuan 20-30/t accordingly to facilitate sales, which indeed attracted some buyers to take tonnage for their immediate production needs, Mysteel Global noted. Nevertheless,China's construction steel market may remain weak recently as end-users have not fully resumed their operations, market sources warned.

Prices of semis were in line with the falling trend of finished steel prices on the same day, with the Tangshan Q235 150mm square billet price in North China's Hebei province under Mysteel's assessment slipping by Yuan 40/t fromSunday to Yuan 3,750/t EXW and including the 13% VAT on Monday.

Written by Carly Chen, chenziyi@mysteel.com

Edited by Alyssa Ren, rentingting@mysteel.com

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