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Mysteel’s portside iron ore index was assessed at Yuan 693/wmt ($97.6/wmt) FOT Qingdao and including the 13% VAT on October 18, after edging down by Yuan 1/wmt on day. Also on Friday, the seaborne index softened by a tiny $0.3/dmt on day to $85.55/dmt CFR Qingdao.
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The most traded January rebar contract on Shanghai Futures Exchange declined further during the week to October 18, slipping by a total of Yuan 87/tonne ($12.3/t) from the settlement price on October 11 to close at Yuan 3,310/t by the end of the daytime session on Friday. Market participants said that despite a decline in stocks, market sentiment had stayed pessimistic and the slowing economic growth had further dampened prices.
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Starting October every year, steelmakers in Northeast China usually divert part of their steel production southwards because local demand contracts as temperatures drop and heavy snow falls make outdoor construction activity impossible. This October, these mills had planned to send a total of 473,000 tonnes of rebar and 623,000 tonnes
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The blast furnace (BF) capacity utilization rate among China’s 247 BF steel companies under Mysteel’s weekly survey increased further by another 1.66 percentage points on week to 78.6% over October 11-17, and their daily molten iron output up further by 46,400 tonnes/day on week to 2.2 million t/d.
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Shagang Group (Shagang), China’s largest electric-arc-furnace (EAF) steelmaker headquartered in Zhangjiagang city in East China’s Jiangsu province, has lowered its procurement price for steel scrap again, clipping Yuan 30/tonne ($4.2/t) off buying prices for all grades effective from October 18 deliveries, the company announced on Friday morning. Shagang has now cut its scrap prices three times since October 13 by a total of Yuan 90/t, Mysteel Global notes.
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China produced 354.4 million tonnes of coke over January-September, some 6.3% higher on year. Over the same nine months, the country’s output of raw coal including thermal and metallurgical coal increased by 4.5% on year to 2.7 billion tonnes, according to the latest National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data published on October 18.
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China’s GDP grew 6.2% on year over January-September, still within Beijing’s 6-6.5% economic growth target for 2019, though the growth for Q3 fell another 0.2 percentage point from Q2 to 6% on year, or a new low after Q2 since China started the GDP statistics in 1992, according to the latest statistics from the country’s National Bureau of Statistics on October 18.
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China’s crude steel production still grew over January-September, but at a lower 8.4% year-on-year rate than the 9.1% annual rise for the first eight months, totalling 748 million tonnes, Mysteel Global noted from the latest statistics released by the country’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on October 18.
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China's fixed asset investment (FAI) in general grew 5.4% on year to Yuan 46.1 trillion ($6.5 trillion) over January-September, down 0.1 percentage point from that for the first eight months, while the funding in the property market maintained its growth at 10.5% on year, the same as that for January-August, according to the latest release from the country’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on October 18.
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Stocks of imported iron ore at China’s 45 major ports grew for the second week over October 11-17 to a new high of 127.2 million tonnes since end of May, or up another 544,300 tonnes or 0.4% on week, as new arrivals remained relatively high but discharge rates at some ports reversed down, according to Mysteel’s latest weekly survey released on October 18.
