SHANGHAI, Sep 7 (SMM) – Stocks of hot-rolled coil (HRC), including social and in-plant volumes, decreased 0.2% from a week ago to 3.18 million mt as of Thursday September 6. Stocks stood 4.9% higher than the same period last year.

As of Thursday, HRC in-plant inventories stood at 992,700 mt, down 1.2% from a week ago but up 17.6% from a year ago. Social stocks came in at 2.19 million mt, up 0.3% week on week but barely changed from the corresponding period last year.

While stocks shrank across steel mills, inventories across social warehouses grew this week as large amounts of deliveries that were previously hampered by heavy rains arrived. Speculators made few transactions this week as price spread between spot and futures prices widened.