Stainless Steel Pipe

The steel mills have come to the edge of loss-making on current market price given increasing cost of the materials, China Securities Journal learned from industry analysts. In the meanwhile, Mysteel finds the main cities have a combined steel stock close to 14mln tons by last Friday.
The steel market actually is seeing few transactions though quotations go on. As the Spring Festival draws nearer, demand becomes thinner while the traders are also less enthusiastic to conclude deals.
Unlike in past years, the steel prices appeared seeing little changes last week; for construction steel, the average market price in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou slid by 30yuan/t at most; the adjustment for medium plate is some 20yuan/t; HRC price kept in line and the large and medium-size sections saw only 10yun/t vibration.
In the meanwhile, stockpile of the main steel products in China’s major cities reached 13.685mt, according to Mysteel data. Of this, rebar accounted 5.59mt, up 364,000t w-o-w, the figure for the same period last year is 2.61mt; HRC stock was 4.139mt, up 47,000t w-o-w, and the figure for the same period last year is 2.184mt. Industry insiders said the real stockpile may be 10% higher than found by the survey.
Steel demand has hit a one-year low, reportedly at 40% of normal consumption from the downstream users.
The stock therefore is still on the rise and the market pressure post the festival should be heavier. "There will be big stress of destocking after the festival." The journal learned from Xu Xiangchun, senior mysteel analyst.
The stockpile is expected to come down from mid-March, when the season supports more demand. With less heat investment and more uncertainties on credit policy this year, the possibility of quick destocking is slim, he also noted.
The recent rise of raw materials prices considerably squeezed steel products’ gross profit. According to an analyst with Shenyin & Wanguo Securities, the steelmakers have come on the edge of loss-making on present steel prices.

Domestic iron ore market kept firm with few fluctuations in some areas this week. Market resources seemed to be a little bit tight, with flat enquiries but small decreasing transactions being heard during this week.

Market price of raw materials edged down due to soft steel price this week. However, the overall iron ore market remained to be strong. On the other hand, spot transactions declined, dating back to the bad weather. But steelmakers' inventory of finished steel was on increase without any output cut.

Chinese domestic iron ore market was damped by steel market with small decline in Northeast area. Yet the market continued to be firm in other areas and it was forecasted to be stable in general with only a few fluctuations in some areas in the future.

Imported iron ore market ran weakly with mixed offers recently. Price for Fe 63.5 Indian ore was posting at $126-128 in futures market and RMB950 or so in cash market. Imported iron ore piled at major domestic seaports edged down to 67.33m tons, a decrease of 0.09mln tons from a week before.

Steelmakers still hold a cautious attitude right now and some areas have witnessed a shortage of resource supply due to the long delivery time. Well, miners were lack of sufficient output. Hence they are quite optimistic about the market after Chinese Spring Festival.
And Mysteel analysts speculate that domestic iron ore market would continue firm with small fluctuations in few areas in a short term.
Iron ore price changes in the major areas of China: