Posted on 14 Nov 2023
Shagang Group (Shagang), China's leading private steel producer headquartered in East China's Jiangsu province, has raised its list prices of rebar, wire rod, and bar-in-coil by Yuan 150/tonne ($20.6/t) for sales over November 11-20, the company announced on Saturday. The list prices of its longs had been rolled over in the prior sales period, Mysteel Global notes.
With the latest pricing policy, Shagang's HRB400 16-20mm rebar is now priced at Yuan 4,000/t, and its prices for HPB300 6-10mm high-speed wire rod and HRB400 8-10mm bar-in-coil have been raised to Yuan 4,090/t and Yuan 4,180/t respectively over the same period, all in terms of EXW and including the 13% VAT.
Shagang, also the country's largest electric-arc-furnace steelmaker, releases its pricing policy for long steel products in a 10-day cycle to better reflect changes in market conditions, Mysteel Global notes.
The steel giant's latest price hike reflected the increase in domestic spot steel prices, which was driven up by rising steel futures prices amid the improved market sentiment, a market source said.
For example, the spot price of HRB400E 20mm rebar in Shanghai – a major market for Shagang's long steel products – jumped by Yuan 160/t from the price on October 31 to hit a 6.5-month high of Yuan 4,000/t and including the 13% VAT by November 10, according to Mysteel's assessment.
However, the source pointed out that steel demand had yet to grow, as suggested by Mysteel's survey across 237 Chinese steel trading houses it tracks nationwide, which showed that their daily trading volume of construction steel including rebar declined by 6,643 tonnes/day or 4% from late October to average 158,139 t/d in early November.
He estimated that demand from end-users would gradually subside in the future as the weather gets colder, while speculative buying among market participants may also act cautious.
Previously, Shagang had decided to raise its scrap procurement prices by Yuan 50/t effective from November 9 to attract more deliveries from scarp dealers and it is currently paying Yuan 2,910-2,970/t for domestically-sourced HMS grade scrap including delivery and the 13% VAT, as reported.
Source:Mysteel Global
