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

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 spot prices of stainless steel have been fluctuating widely since September. The prices rose by 1,000 yuan/mt in September, and then increased by 1,000 yuan/mt further after the National Day holiday amid the active market purchase. The prices have stabilised now.

According to SMM survey, the domestic stainless steel output totalled 2.22 million mt in September, a drop of 590,000 mt or 20.97% month on month, and down 19.75% year on year.

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.

While the LME nickel price is likely to go up further to $13,800-14,000/mt as stainless steel mills continued to restock, SMM believes there is downside risk around March and April

The stainless steel imports by the country surged higher significantly during the initial five-month period of the current fisca.