Xiangtan Iron & Steel Hikes Manganese Ball Bid Price in November

The average spot prices of EMM in main producing areas fell by 500 yuan/mt to 15,000-17,300 yuan/mt compared with the average prices before the Qingming festival, and the average prices of FOB fell by $100/mt to $2,500-2,800/mt.

As of March 25, the average EMM prices across the major EMM producing regions fell by 3,500 yuan/mt on the week, with mainstream prices ranging between 18,000-22,000 yuan/mt. The overall decline eased in the second half of last week, with a cool atmosphere for supply and demand negotiations.

At present, there are 24 iron and steel joint enterprises in Shanxi, China. In 2021, the pig iron output was 59.884 million mt, a year-on-year decrease of 1.6%; Crude steel output was 67.407 million mt, up 1.6% year-on-year; The output of steel products was 61.739 million mt, which was basically the same as that of the previous year.

Under the influence of the increasingly severe pandemic, the epidemic prevention policy in domestic ports was strict, while the unloading capacity of terminals was restricted and the efficiency of cargo handling was reduced.

Today, the spot prices of all series of stainless steel products in Foshan stood flat today. The average price of the 300 series product was around 18,000 yuan/mt. The market received a large number of goods last week, while the demand failed to keep up. The downstream users continued to purchase on rigid demand after the prices rebounded slightly yesterday.

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%.

According to SMM statistics, the total supply of EMM in November was 91,300 mt, a decrease of 5% from the previous month. At the beginning of December, both supply and demand in the manganese market were weak, and the decline in the social inventories slowed down.

On December 1, ports in north China: Australian ore 45-46 yuan/mtu, South African manganese semicarbonate ore 34-35 yuan/mtu, Gabonese ore 41-42 yuan/mtu, Brazilian ore 42-43 yuan/mtu, South African high-iron manganese ore 34-35 yuan/mtu; ports in south China: Australian ore 47-48 yuan/mtu, South African manganese semicarbonate ore 37-39 yuan/mtu, Gabonese ore 43-44 yuan/mtu, Brazilian ore 43-44 yuan/mtu, South African high-iron ore 35-36 yuan/mtu.

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.