SHANGHAI, Mar 15 (SMM) – Stable recovery of demand and downstream concerns over supply cuts amid a pollution alert continued to deplete rebar inventories in the week ended Thursday March 14, SMM data showed.
Average prices of rebar held firm at 3,911.7 yuan/mt, flat from last week. Spot prices fell in some regions on March 14 after Tangshan lifted its red alert for smog, but overall prices stood firm with support from fundamentals.
Overall inventories, including social and in-plant stocks, shrank to 12.49 million mt as of Thursday March 14, down 5.8% from a week ago and down 7.7% from a lunar year earlier, showed SMM data. This compared with a week-on-week decline of 2.8% on Thursday March 7.
However, overall stocks have not fallen to the yearly average level, which was at 7.51 million mt for 2018.
As of March 14, inventories across steel mills stood at 2.76 million mt, down 11.2% from a week ago and down 23.3% from a lunar year ago. Social stocks also declined by 4.1% on the week and by 2.1% on the year to stand at 9.72 million mt as of March 14.
For the same week, social inventories of long steel, including wire rods and rebar, in Guangzhou of Guangdong province, gained 1.86%, and stood at 1.95 million mt as of Thursday March 14, SMM data showed.
