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China’s ferrous and steel-consuming sectors such as construction have reported various degrees of disruption to their daily operations by the grand celebration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC) with the formal ceremony to be held in Beijing on July 1, Mysteel Global understood from the related markets on June 22.
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There’s no disputing the fact that the coronavirus pandemic is a crisis, and that the fight against it has forced many changes to how the world works, lives and functions. Some of those changes have had unexpected benefits, such as greater consciousness of personal hygiene, the wider introduction of cashless payments, and yes, the rapid evolution of comprehensive and user-friendly virtual conference platforms, just to name a few.
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Recently my schedule has been twirling around the conference calls with market sources and companies, which are the best means of staying in touch under the present circumstances, though I always feel that something’s amiss in the whole new working routine dominated by innumerable audio and video calls – the human touch.
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China’s major steel consuming sectors including construction contractors, auto and home appliances manufacturers have been prioritizing on fulfilling their signed contracts, though they have keenly felt the bite from the higher steel prices, and they may continue to endure the pain of higher costs now that prices of both steel longs and flats have spiked in the last few days, market sources shared on May 11.
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Recently, global steel and iron ore prices have been attempting their multi-year or record highs, mainly as the recovery in demand for finished steel has outpaced the growth in supply, though the COVID-19, after over a year, is still very much with us, and have even intensified the attack in some countries such as India.
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The global 62% ferrous content iron ore fines price has conquered the $200/dmt CFR threshold on May 6, the first working day after China’s Labour Day holiday, which had been an accumulation in force after a strong first quarter and the rally since April, benefiting from the robust steel demand both in China and the rest of the world, despite that global iron ore supplies have been steadily recovering from the impact of Vale’s dam collapse in January 2019.
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The benefit of covering the ferrous market news for long especially being very close to the happenings in the iron ore market when working in the world’s three pricing reporting agencies (PRAs) is to immediately know that the 62% iron ore pricing index hit a historical high on May 6 when it exceeded $200/dmt CFR China, without even bothering to check the data.
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The surges in the prices of the series of ferrous products including steel, iron ore, and coke since April, have further divided the ferrous market sources in and out of China on their views regarding the possibility of China’s steel output cuts despite Beijing’s reiterations, as steel demand both in and out of China has been robust and steel margins have been high at Yuan 600-1,000/tonne ($93-155/t) depending on products.
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China’s ferrous market has almost been back to the normalcy by now, as is evident before the Labour Day holiday over May 1-5 when participants in the steel value chain have been into the pre-holiday inventory rebuild mode, though market pundits notice that the persistently high steel and iron ore prices have made it less likely for the restocking in large quantities both because of cash flow constraints and pricing risks.
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The Channar Mining Joint Venture, China’s first-ever overseas iron ore mining investment initiated back in 1987 between Sinosteel Corp and Rio Tinto and which ceased operations last December, has been hailed this week.
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China’s ferrous community seems to be in a booming period, as on top of the domestic steel price surges since late March, stocks of both Angang Steel Co and Bengang Steel Plates Co, the Shenzhen-listed arms of the top two steel mills in Northeast China, surged 5.3% and 10% on day on April 7.
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The year 2021 is holding a personal significance to me, as this year is the 20th anniversary of me being a journalist, the career that I have pursued with great passion and full of joy. To mark the special year, over the past two months I have conducted a series of interviews with Chinese steel industry insiders to pay respect for those who have long served the industry.
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Writer’s remarks: 2021 is holding a personal significance to me, as this year is the 20th anniversary of me being a steel and metals industry journalist, the career that I have pursued with great passion and full of joy. To mark the special year, in the weeks to come I will interview a few in China’s steel industry who, just like me, have witnessed it evolve, for their own stories and their observations.
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Writer’s remarks: 2021 is holding a personal significance to me, as this year is the 20th anniversary of me being a steel and metals industry journalist, the career that I have pursued with great passion and full of joy. To mark the special year, in the weeks to come I will interview a few in China’s steel industry who, just like me, have witnessed it evolve, for their own stories and their observations.
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We are almost two months into 2021, and the global iron ore prices have so far appeared rather resilient especially with the serious surges after the Chinese New Year holiday over February 11-17, and with the anticipation of global economic recovery and the recent booms in the steel prices in many countries including China, the worldwide ferrous community is wondering whether the history of 2020 will repeat this year.
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Writer’s remarks: 2021 is holding a personal significance to me, as this year is the 20th anniversary of me being a steel and metals industry journalist, the career that I have pursued with great passion and full of joy. To mark the special year, in the weeks to come I will interview a few in China’s steel industry that, just like me, have witnessed it evolve, for their own stories and their observations.
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Chinese steelmakers have announced intensive maintenance plans recently, and though overhauls are not uncommon during the usual winter lull in business, this year the mills are offering a variety of reasons for taking some major equipment items offline, citing everything from coke shortages to bitter cold.
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Beijing has been working quietly on carbon emission cuts for a few years but its open pledge in 2020 to peak the country’s carbon emission by 2030 and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 has undoubtedly imposed more pressure publicly on the steel industry, the country’s second largest carbon emission source only after the thermal coal power generation.
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Hebei, China’s top steel producing province in North China and now the new epicentre of the COVID-19 outbreak in China, has been acting swiftly by curtailing the mobility of the citizens in three of its cities – Shijiazhuang, Xingtai and Langfang, and the local authorities have been fast in blanket swaps tests on the citizens, trying to bring down the number of the new daily cases.
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No one would have expected the steelmaking raw materials prices including iron ore, coke and scrap to have attempted multi-year highs in December, a usual off season for steel consumption and production, but the year 2020 had been proven anything but normal, and many iron ore traders ended their 2020 in frustration, as iron ore prices shot up for seemingly no reason at all.
