China's retail steel stocks continues to decline

The stocks of five major finished steel products held by the Chinese trading houses that Mysteel tracks regularly declined for the fourth straight week over August 20-26, albeit by a tiny 0.4% or 99,700 tonnes on week, Mysteel Global noted.

As of August 26, inventories of the five major steel products including rebar, wire rod, hot-rolled coil (HRC), cold-rolled coil (CRC) and medium plate at commercial warehouses in 132 cities nationwide decreased to 23.1 million tonnes.

The stocks of rebar, HRC, CRC and medium plate showed on-week declines. Among them, HRC stocks decreased the most by 90,400 tonnes on week to 4.2 million tonnes. In contrast, wire rod stocks grew by 67,100 tonnes on week to 3.3 million tonnes.

As for production, these five items saw their total output decline for the second week over August 19-25, sliding 0.3% or 26,500 tonnes on week to 10.1 million tonnes, Mysteel's survey found, as many domestic steelmakers were complying with government directives to restrict steel output.

Though domestic spot steel prices have seen some slow recovery this week, the country's national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar assessed by Mysteel for example, still eased by Yuan 12/tonne ($1.9/t) on week to reach Yuan 5,299/t and including the 13% VAT by August 25, as cautious sentiment has been prevailing amid market uncertainties.

Inventories of these five steel products in Mysteel's former smaller sample across the 35 Chinese cities had dipped in line with the larger sample for the fourth week in a row, down 0.4% or 61,200 tonnes on week to reach 14.8 million tonnes as of August 26.

Written by Rong Zhang, zhangronga@mysteel.com

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