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.

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.

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.

The average EMM prices across the three major EMM producing (Songtao in Guizhou, Huayuan in Hunan, and Xiushan in Chongqing) and Guangxi stood at 40,000-40,500 yuan/mt last week, down 1,250 yuan/mt from a week ago.

South Africa’s national power company Eskom said on October 23 that it would cut the power supply by 2,000 megawatts due to the failure of the generator sets of its six power plants. The power curtailment continued until Oct 25.

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.

China’s total exports of wrought manganese, manganese products, unwrought manganese, shredded scrap, and powder stood at 33,100 mt in August, down 4.32% month on month but up 22.73% year on year, according to SMM statistics.

Discounts of high-grade NPI against stainless steel scrap expanded last week and averaged 105 yuan/mtu, 30 yuan/mtu wider than the previous week.