Hot-rolled coil inventories gain on week

SHANGHAI, Feb 2 (SMM) – Hot-rolled coil (HRC) stocks across social warehouses and steelmakers in China gained 4% from a week ago and came in at 2.99 million mt as of Thursday January 31, SMM data showed.

In the last week before the Chinese New Year (CNY) break, HRC inventories stood 1% lower than the lunar period last year.

For the same period, HRC social stocks rose for five consecutive weeks to stand at 2.1 million mt, up 8% week on week. This sent the social inventory figure as of January 31 to stand 3.3% higher than the same period before CNY last year.

HRC stocks across steelmakers declined 4.4% to 882,500 mt, down 4% year on year.