SHANGHAI, Mar 8 (SMM) – Stable resumption of downstream demand started to lower rebar inventories in the week ended Thursday March 7, the fourth week after CNY, SMM data showed.
Frequent environmental curbs this week limitedly affected rebar output, but bolstered rebar prices by an average 52 yuan/mt week on week, to 3,907.7 yuan/mt as of Thursday March 7.
Overall inventories, including social and in-plant stocks, shrank to 13.25 million mt as of Thursday March 7, down 2.8% from a week ago and down 4.3% from a lunar year earlier, showed SMM data. This compared with a week-on-week growth of 3.8% on Thursday February 28.
As of Thursday March 7, inventories across steel mills stood at 3.11 million mt, down 9.3% from a week ago and down 12.6% from a lunar year ago. Social stocks also declined by 0.7% on the week and by 1.4% on the year to stand at 10.14 million mt as of March 7.
For the same week, social inventories of long steel, including wire rods and rebar, in Guangzhou of Guangdong province, dropped 0.24%, or 4,700 mt on a weekly basis, to 1.91 million mt as of Thursday March 7, SMM data showed.
