MMi Daily Iron Ore Report (September 20)

Typhoon "Fireworks" landed strongly in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and Zhejiang was first hit by storms.

Stainless steel output continued to increase in July, hitting a new year high.

Stainless steel consumption has improved significantly month-on-month in July, but remained weaker than the same period last year. Inventories extended declines, suggesting robust sales in major markets, but remained higher compared to July 2019, according to the recent SMM survey.

The global widespread of COVID-19 has forced many countries to enforce stringent containment measures which result in a heavy impact on global economic activity. Over the past few months, we saw serious disruption of manpower, transportation and production in China. We are now seeing these scenarios happening around the world.

China’s production of stainless steel in March dropped 13.2% from a year ago, showed SMM data, amid the coronavirus pandemic.

China produced 29.4 million mt of crude stainless steel in 2019, up 10.08% from 2018, according to data from the Stainless Steel Council of China Special Steel Enterprises Association.

Industrial activity levels outside of central China continues to improve as workers return from quarantine periods and logistics pressures eased.

Transportation activity in coastal provinces has started to return to near normal levels in recent days, but that inland remains more restricted

Stainless steel consumption in Europe is better in 2017 compared to years past, SMM understands.

#1 Insulated Copper Wire 85% Recovery prices remained unchanged at CNY 27,950 per MT upon comparison with the previous day.