Top News on China Ferrous markets

The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) finalized on July 23 the implementation of additional tariffs of 10% to 12.5% on imports from dozens of countries and regions under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, citing alleged "forced labor" practices. The action, first proposed on

China's blast-furnace (BF) steelmakers further reined in production during the past week in response to their widened profit losses and still-sluggish steel demand from end-users, Mysteel's latest survey showed.

Inventories of imported iron ore stockpiled at China's 47 major ports tracked by Mysteel increased by 486,900 tonnes or 0.3% on week to 171.13 million tonnes by July 23, ending a three-week decline. Meanwhile, the stocks remained 18.9% higher than the year-prior level.

Inventories of the five major carbon steel products held by the Chinese steel mills sampled in Mysteel's regular survey reversed up during the period of July 17-23 to reach 4.51 million tonnes, rising slightly by 0.8% on week and ending the decline witnessed over the prior three weeks.

Retail stocks of the five major carbon steel items stockpiled in traders' commercial warehouses across China that Mysteel regularly checks began mounting again during the week of July 17-23 after the previous week's slide, the results of Mysteel's latest weekly survey showed.

Ferrosilicon (FeSi) smelters in Northwest China's Qinghai province, one of the country's major FeSi production bases, are expected to face higher electricity costs following the provincial government's recent implementation of the Reliability Capacity Compensation Mechanism for the Power Generation

The drawdown in inventories of imported iron ore pellets at Chinese ports over the past two months has driven pellet premiums to multi-year highs, new Mysteel data show.

Russian coking coal is being railed from east-coast Chinese ports westward to Shanxi province, China's traditional coking coal heartland, in an unusual "reverse" flow that underscores how severely the provincial government's mining safety crackdown has disrupted local supply, Mysteel Global has lear

China's high-carbon ferrochrome (HC FeCr) imports posted a significant on-year decline in this year's January-June half, as shipments from South Africa collapsed, causing a major redraft of the country's ferrochrome import map.

Preliminary data released Tuesday by the Japan Iron & Steel Federation (JISF) showed that the country's steelmakers both integrated mills and mini-mills were more productive during this year's January-June half than many had expected, with output reaching 40.4 million tonnes, lower by just 0.4% from