Posted on 14 Jul 2023
Chinese prices of nickel pig iron (NPI) kept stable over the past week, with the price of 8-10% grade NPI in East China's Jiangsu province under Mysteel's assessment still at Yuan 1,070/mtu ($149/mtu) including delivery and the 13% VAT as of July 12, unchanged from one week before.
Transactions in the physical market have been inactive recently, survey respondents said. Despite the ferroalloy being oversupplied – due to higher imports from Indonesia – the domestic NPI smelters refuse to trim their offering prices further when they see sales prices fall below their smelting costs.
Meanwhile, during the survey week stainless producers still tried to lower their procurement prices of steelmaking raw materials including NPI to reduce their production costs, given their shrinking profit margins and the dull stainless demand, Mysteel Global learned.
Chinese stainless prices hovered low during the past week with the wait-and-see sentiment prevailing in domestic market. As of July 12, the spot price of 304/2B 2mm stainless cold-rolled coil in Wuxi in Jiangsu was assessed by Mysteel at Yuan 15,300/t in-warehouse and including the 13% VAT, also unchanged on week.
Besides, China's prices of nickel concentrates held steady through the week, supported by the firm offering prices of overseas mines and the higher import costs of Chinese traders. This also encouraged domestic NPI smelters to hold their offering prices to monitor the market changes in the weeks ahead.
As of July 12, the price of Philippines-origin 1.3% nickel content concs under Mysteel's assessment was still at $33/t CIF Lianyungang port in Jiangsu, unchanged since May 9.
Inventories of nickel concs at China's 14 major ports mounted further due to the thin sales, with the total volume reaching 9.3 million tonnes as of July 6, higher by another 22,900 tonnes or 0.3% on week. Among the total, the volume from the Philippines reached 9 million tonnes, up 30,200 tonnes during the same period, according to Mysteel's latest weekly survey.
Source:Mysteel Global
