Price of 300 Series Hot Rolling in Foshan area on April 21, 2020

Although the downstream stocking is about to end, the spot stainless steel prices in Foshan rose more than expected last week.

On 13 December, Baosteel Desheng took the lead in issuing the Initiative on Jointly Maintaining the Order of the 200-Series Market and Regulating Market Behaviour and committed to cut the output of 200-series products from the perspective of balancing market demand and supply, by maintaining only one blast furnace in production by March 2022 in an effort to scale back the overall supply by more than 60%.

The average price of Ni 1.5% Philippine laterite nickel ore stood at $82/wmt last week, flat on the week.

This is a roundup of news in the steel industry for last week.

The spot prices of stainless steel have been fluctuating widely since September. The prices rose by 1,000 yuan/mt in September, and then increased by 1,000 yuan/mt further after the National Day holiday amid the active market purchase. The prices have stabilised now.

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.

SHFE nickel prices are expected to fluctuate between 141,000-148,000 yuan/mt, and LME nickel prices are expected to move between $18,800-19,600/mt this week.

The average price of SMM 8-12% high-grade NPI was 1,390 yuan/mtu (ex-factory including tax) as of August 20

Nickel prices received support as capital inflows surged on short supplies in the market as of Tuesday May 15 but SMM does not expect the uptick in prices to be sustained

Taiwan will undertake anti-dumping anti-subsidy investigations on certain steel products imported from China, according to China’s Ministry of Commerce.