That marked the third consecutive week of decline in Guangzhou inventories as downstream demand improved as the market has roughly shrugged off the impact of the rainy season.

Social inventories of long steel (including wire rods and rebar) in Guangzhou posted slower declines this week, decreasing 6.83%, or 120,200 mt, from a week ago to 1.64 million mt as of Wednesday May 20, smaller than a drop of 9.53% in the previous week, showed SMM data.

Planned output of construction steel rebar across China’s major blast furnace steelmakers in May rose 15.24% from the planned production in April to 9.16 million mt,  on the back of steelmakers return from maintenance and diverted capacity to rebar in the chase of higher profits, showed an SMM survey.

Chinese electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmakers operating rates continued to edge higher as of early May, driven by the resumption of producers in central China as the spread of the coronavirus has stalled. However, the rally in operations will be constrained due to a surge in feedstock steel scrap prices. 

Inventories of steel rebar across Chinese steelmakers and social warehouses slowed their year-on-year buildup as of April 16, the first time since the Chinese Year holiday, a sign that a high demand season may have arrived with the rise in consumption surpassing the supply increase.

Nearly 20 major steelmakers in China have raised their quotes for spot construction steel sales following a substantial rally in futures that began in early April. The increases in quotes, varying from 10 to 50 yuan/mt, did not mute trades, SMM research found.

Inventories of steel rebar across Chinese steelmakers and social warehouses fell for the fourth consecutive week as of April 9 with the steady recovery of demand as construction work has normalised. Compared with the same period a year earlier, however, the stocks continued their buildup, which remains the headwinds facing spot prices of rebar. 

Social inventories of lead ingots in China continued to trend downsides this week, but the decline slowed down from a week ago due to rising supplies of secondary lead.

Social inventories of long steel (including wire rods and rebar) in Guangzhou continued to trend lower in the week ended April 1, falling 2.1% to 2.25 million mt, 26.01% higher than the same period after the Lunar New Year holiday last year.

Zinc inventories in China continued to fall over the weekend, propelled by declines in east and north China where downstream consumers were keen to make purchases. SMM data showed that social inventories of refined zinc ingots across Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong and Hebei stood at 304,000 mt as of Monday March 30, down 3,000 mt from Friday March 27 and 20,000 mt from Monday March 23.