Cold weather chills Chinese sales of steel stocks

Total stocks of finished steel held by Chinese traders declined at a slower pace over November 20-26 as many regions in China were hit by suddenly plummeting temperatures, heavy rains and snowfalls, causing a parallel freezing of demand, Mysteel Global has learned.

This meant that the inventories of rebar, wire rod, hot-rolled coil, cold-rolled coil and medium plate placed at warehouses of traders in the 132 cities sampled by Mysteel continued to empty but at a slower pace. The traders’ stocks declined by 4.6% or 742,300 tonnes on week to 15.2 million tonnes as