WEEKLY: China mills' steel stocks mount in quiet market
Total stocks of the five steel items reached 4.36 million tonnes as of January 26, higher by another 116,400 tonnes on week. Among the total, the tonnages of rebar and wire rod posted the largest on-week rises of 125,900 tonnes and 21,700 tonnes respectively, the survey showed.
The further accumulation was mainly attributed to the fact that transactions in the physical market had come to a standstill since the beginning of this week as most end-users and traders have halted operations with the coming Chinese New Year (CNY) holiday over January 31-February 6, Mysteel Global noted.
Over January 20-26, total production of the five major steel items among the sampled steel mills resumed trending upward, after the on-week fall over the prior week, rising by 0.3% on week to 9.14 million tonnes, as some domestic steel mills resumed production after completing maintenance.
As a pointer to the stagnant demand for steel ahead of the CNY break, inventories of these five steel products at commercial warehouses in the 132 Chinese cities under Mysteel's survey grew fast to reach 17.4 million tonnes over January 21-27, climbing at the quicker pace of 15.8% on week against the on-week rise of 6.6% over the prior week.
However, domestic steel prices still increased slowly this week on support of the higher list prices announced by some Chinese steel mills. As of January 27, the national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar, for example, was assessed by Mysteel at Yuan 4,816/tonne ($759/t) including the 13% VAT, up another Yuan 18/t on week.
Written by Nancy Zheng, zhengmm@mysteel.com
Edited by Zhenqi Yang, yangzhenqi@mysteel.com
Table 1 Five major steel products stocks at mills (Jan 20-26)
Product |
Volume ('000 t) |
WoW (%) |
MoM (%) |
YoY (%) |
Rebar |
1,911.1 |
7.1% |
5.3% |
-37.5% |
Wire rod |
606.5 |
3.7% |
14.4% |
-34.2% |
HR sheet |
814.8 |
-3.3% |
-1.5% |
-31.9% |
CR sheet |
360.5 |
4.8% |
12.8% |
17.2% |
Medium plate |
666.4 |
-2.9% |
-7.0% |
-17.5% |
Total |
4,359.3 |
2.7% |
3.6% |
-30.7% |
Table 2 Five major steel products stocks at traders (Jan 21-27)
Product |
Volume (million t) |
WoW (%) |
MoM (%) |
YoY (%) |
Rebar |
7.60 |
24.0% |
47.0% |
-10.9% |
Wire rod |
2.89 |
28.6% |
48.1% |
-6.0% |
HR sheet |
3.10 |
5.0% |
8.5% |
5.9% |
CR sheet |
1.89 |
2.7% |
3.3% |
23.6% |
Medium plate |
1.93 |
3.4% |
7.3% |
-3.0% |
Total |
17.41 |
15.8% |
28.0% |
-3.5% |
Note: Mysteel has started publishing the new set of data regarding traders' steel inventories since March 19 2020 to better represent the market with bigger sample sizes.
Rebar and wire rod: Sample size is increased to 429 warehouses in 132 Chinese cities from the previous 215 warehouses in 35 cities.
Hot-rolled coil (HRC): Sample size is increased to 194 warehouses in 55 cities from the previous 138 warehouses in 33 cities.
Cold-rolled coil (CRC): Sample size is increased to 182 warehouses in 29 cities from the previous 134 warehouses in 26 cities.
Medium plate: Sample size is increased to 217 warehouses in 65 cities from the previous 132 warehouses in 31 cities.
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