Steel stocks at Chinese traders fall further, faster
The latest stocks survey shows that total inventories of rebar, wire rod, hot-rolled coil, cold rolled coil and medium plate held by traders in the 132 Chinese cities Mysteel monitors shed 987,800 tonnes on week to reach 28.1 million tonnes as of March 21. Rebar and wire rod still witnessed the sharpest declines, the survey data showed.
Rebar inventories dropped by 383,500 tonnes on week to nearly 14 million tonnes as of Thursday, and wire rod saw its stocks thin by 306,400 tonnes during the same period to 3.9 million tonnes.
Behind the slide in stocks is the pick-up in steel demand from end-users, with the daily trading volume of construction steel including rebar and wired rod among the 237 trading houses Mysteel samples averaging 142,397 tonnes/day over March 14-20, jumping by 28.7% on week.
"Steel demand has been recovering and this, coupled with the steelmakers' low steel output, is helping to boost market sentiment to some extent," a market source stated.
During March 14-20, total output of the five major steel products among the 184 Chinese steelmakers across the country Mysteel follows paused from three weeks of rises, slipping by 0.1% or 7,500 tonnes on week to 8.48 million tonnes. The volume was also lower by 11.6% from the same period last year, Mysteel's data indicated.
The inventories of finished steel products in Mysteel's former smaller sample across just 35 cities also decreased for the second week, slipping by 2.9% or 503,500 tonnes on week to 17.1 million tonnes by March 21.
Written by Rong Zhang, zhangronga@mysteel.com
Edited by Russ McCulloch, russ.mcculloch@mysteel.com
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