WEEKLY SUMMARY: China steel prices up on optimism

Rebar: As of January 7, China's national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar under Mysteel's assessment recovered from two weeks of declines, reaching Yuan 4,744/tonne ($744/t) including the 13% VAT after an on-week gain of Yuan 18/t, mainly thanks to the relatively stable demand.

Over January 4-7, spot trading volume of construction steel including rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among the 237 Chinese steel traders under Mysteel's tracking saw an uptick of 7,050 tonnes/day or 5% on week, averaging 147,604 t/d.

As of January 7, the most-traded May 2022 rebar contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) rebounded by Yuan 225/t from the settlement price on December 31 to close at Yuan 4,526/t when the daytime trading session ended, and its backwardation against the Shanghai spot rebar price, thus, had narrowed to Yuan 224/t from Yuan 445/t a week earlier.

Billet: By January 7, the Q235 150mm square billet price in North China's Tangshan under Mysteel's assessment reversed up by Yuan 80/t on week to Yuan 4,350/t EXW including the VAT, as demand for billet from local re-rollers had picked up after the lift of production curbs placed on them earlier.

HRC: China's national price of Q235 4.75mm HRC under Mysteel's assessment also reversed up by Yuan 40/t on week to Yuan 4,818/t including the 13% VAT on January 7, and HRC stocks at the commercial warehouses in China's 33 cities under Mysteel's tracking grew 20,000 tonnes on week after three weeks of declines, to around 2.2 million tonnes as of January 6.

On January 7, the SHFE's most-traded May 2022 HRC contract had also rebounded by Yuan 259/t from the settlement price on December 31, closing at Yuan 4,677/t when the daytime trading session ended, and its backwardation against the Shanghai spot HRC price had narrowed to Yuan 253/t from the prior week's Yuan 449/t.

Written by Rong Zhang, zhangronga@mysteel.com

Edited by Zhenqi Yang, yangzhenqi@mysteel.com