Chinese Weekly Steel Market Highlights - Week 5, 2018

This week Chinese steel market started to rebound amid gains in future market. Flat steel export offers rose marginally.Coking coal prices witness upward momentum on resumed purchases from Indian and Chinese buyers.Iron ore prices remained range bound.However re-bar export offers decline slightly over sparse trading.

Also Chinese mills are waiting for New year holidays which is scheduled in the second week of February.

Seaborne iron ore prices fall as trade activities lessen - Iron ore fines (Fe 62%) index fell from USD 73.75/MT,CFR in beginning of week to USD 72.7/MT, CFR towards the weekend.

With majority of steel mills having completed their restocking activities ahead of the Lunar New Year, iron ore trades. Spot lump premium moved up to USD 0.179/DMT, CFR China.

Pellet premium fell marginally USD 1/MT W-o-W to USD 42.1/DMT, CFR China.
Iron ore stock at Chinese major ports decreased by 0.55 MnT to 152.58 MnT against last week.

Coking coal prices inched up on resumed purchases - Australian coking coal offers witness uptrend this week since the Chinese buyers resumed buying ahead of Chinese Lunar Year holidays in mid-Feb'18.

Also demand for imported coking coal from Indian buyers have also strengthen.These factors contribute in rising coking coal offers from Australia.

Currently,Premium HCC prices were assessed at around USD 217.50/MT FoB Australia, rose by USD 7/MT which was at USD 210-212/MT FoB basis in preceding week.

Chinese domestic billet offers moved up -Chinese domestic billet prices in Tangshan (China) moved up this week and stood at RMB 3,710MT (ex-works, including 17% VAT) in the starting of the week , moved up by RMB 40/MT and stood at 3,750/MT by the end of week.

Chinese HRC export offers bounce back over gain in futures - Chinese HRC export offers started to rebound amid futures gains in domestic market.Nation's HRC export offers moved up by USD 5/MT on W-o-W basis.

Currently HRC commercial grade ASTM A36 export offers are prevailing in the range of USD 585-590/MT,FoB China.Payment are made on letter of credit basis for 1,000-10,000 MT.

Prices of HRC in domestic market went by RMB 20/MT D-o-D basis and are hovering in the range of RMB 4,090-4,120/MT (Eastern China) and RMB
3,970 - 4,000/MT (Northern China) including VAT & other taxes.

Also Rizhao Iron and Steel has concluded the deal with Vietnam and South America at USD 585/MT,FoB China.

Chinese Re-bar export offers moved down-Chinese rebar export offers reported decline this week amid limited trades in global market.

Currently, nation's re-bar export offers are at USD 550/MT on FoB basis.However bide from overseas buyers remained on lower side

Markets participants mentioned that bids were heard at USD 550-555/MT FoB basis.They also shared that rebar export offers may increase since the steel mills will start restocking their inventories after Chinese new year holidays.

Source-SteelMint Research