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Restocking sentiment among Chinese steel market players has waned this week, as most have started looking beyond the National Day week holiday over October 1-7 to ponder the fundamentals of key products and their price movements after the break. Arguably, the market outlook has rarely been this uncertain.
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Despite the heated discussion in the overseas market about the financial matter of Evergrande Group, China’s second largest property developer, and the concerns about the ripple effect on China’s property market and steel demand, China’s domestic steel market sources appeared rather calm, anticipating whatever adverse impact on this individual case will be contained and managed.
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It is always like a treasure hunt for me whenever reading a company’s annual report, as behind all those hard and straightforward numbers, there is always an interesting story to tell and a glimpse of the company’s development strategy based on its understanding of the future, and this is exactly how I feel when flipping through BHP’s 81-page report on its full-year results for FY2021.
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Anshan Iron & Steel Group (Ansteel) in Northeast China’s Liaoning province has been quietly progressing with its merger of Bengang Group (Bengang), another state-owned steel mill in the province, as more shares of Bengang’s Shenzhen-listed arm have been transferred to the group company free of charge to facilitate the merger, a Bengang official confirmed on July 21.
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China released all its key economic development data for the first half of 2021 by last week, and related governing organizations also held press conferences to explain the key points of the data on the day of releases where senior officials emphasized the country’s economic growth had been further optimized and is heading towards the desired track via the heavy reliance on the country’s huge domestic market.
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For July-December, China’s domestically-produced iron ore concentrates may reach 152-154 million tonnes, or up 6-8 million tonnes on year and resulting in an added supply of 13-15 million tonnes for the whole 2021, as the domestic iron ore mining operations are expected to be smooth after a bumpy H1, and the newly-commissioned projects will be able to deliver products to the market, Mysteel shared its outlook.
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Carbon reduction and bulk commodity prices have been become two regular topics at the routine meetings of China’s State Council and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang again commented on the two matters, sharing more measures at a meeting of the council members on July 7, according to a post by the Chinese government on its website.
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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 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.
