Although the downstream stocking is about to end, the spot stainless steel prices in Foshan rose more than expected last week.

The spot supply was relatively tight in the stainless steel market.

On 13 December, Baosteel Desheng took the lead in issuing the Initiative on Jointly Maintaining the Order of the 200-Series Market and Regulating Market Behaviour and committed to cut the output of 200-series products from the perspective of balancing market demand and supply, by maintaining only one blast furnace in production by March 2022 in an effort to scale back the overall supply by more than 60%.

The futures prices of stainless steel kept falling by more than 1,000 yuan/mt last week, and the spot prices remained in a downward trend.

According to SMM survey, the domestic stainless steel output totalled 2.3 million mt in November, up 14% month-on-month, but down 10.2% year-on-year. The output totalled 29.72 million mt from January to November, an increase of 10.23% year-on-year.

The prices of 300-series cold-rolled stainless steel fell significantly again in Foshan today. A steel mill in south China lowered the prices sharply.

Nickel prices received support as capital inflows surged on short supplies in the market as of Tuesday May 15 but SMM does not expect the uptick in prices to be sustained

Taiwan will undertake anti-dumping anti-subsidy investigations on certain steel products imported from China, according to China’s Ministry of Commerce.

Nickel pig iron (NPI) is likely to account for close to 60% of the raw material supply for stainless steel from 2019, according to senior analyst of nickel at SMM, Wang Cong.

Stainless steel mills said they have little inventory pressure after the Chinese New Year (CNY) holiday, SMM learned.