The China Solid Waste and Chemicals Management Bureau, a unit of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, granted import allowances for 10,423 mt of high-grade copper scrap to 14 companies in the latest release, bringing the cumulative quotas for this year to 540,184 mt.

Jiangsu Tafel New Energy Technology on May 17 kicked off construction of its phase II and III capacity of a power battery project, which is located at the Jiangning Development Zone, Nanjing.  

Prices of most light and medium-to-heavy rare earth oxides increased last week as sellers firmed up offers on active enquiries by downstream consumers. SMM expects the improvement in enquiries to continue to support prices of medium-to-heavy rare earth oxides this week, while prices of light rare earth, such as praseodymium-neodymium oxide, will likely pull back as the strength of demand may unable to sustain a price rally. 

China’s output of pig iron increased 7.5% to 72.02 million mt in April from a month ago, to generate a year-over-year decline of 1.2%, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released on Friday.

SMM data showed that HRC stocks across social warehouses and steelmakers decreased 4.17% in the week ended May 14 to 4.26 million mt, marking the ninth straight weekly decline.

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. 

Data published by the industry body on Tuesday showed that social inventories of hot- and cold-rolled plates/coils, heavy & medium plates, wire rods and rebar in 20 Chinese cities stood at 16.24 million mt as of the end of April, down 930,000 mt, or 5.4% from April 20.

Hebei Jinxi Iron & Steel plans to put a 2,000m³ blast furnace into operation at the end of May, SMM learned.

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.