Posted on 27 Mar 2024
Chinese prices of ferromolybdenum (FeMo) continued to weaken during the week of March 18-22, impacted by a slowdown in stainless mills' procurement pace of the alloy, market sources shared.
On March 22, the price of 60% FeMo in Northeast China, a major production hub in the country for the noble alloy, fell to Yuan 219,000/tonne ($30,369/t) including the 13% VAT, with an on-week drop of Yuan 5,000/t, according to Mysteel's assessment.
Recently, many steel mills clipped their offering prices of stainless steel products due to poor sales, resulting in their limited buying interest in raw materials including FeMo, a Shanghai-based analyst explained.
For example, Tsingshan Group, the world's leading stainless-steel producer headquartered in East China's Zhejiang province, lowered its list prices of the 316-grade hot-rolled coil and cold-rolled coil for sales in April by Yuan 400/t from its prior list prices.
Consequently, stainless mills in many regions of the country such as North China's Hebei and East China's Jiangsu tabled lower bidding prices for FeMo at Yuan 217,000-219,000/t last week, compared to the Yuan 220,000/t prevailed in the market during the prior week, according to the source.
The downtrend in China's FeMo prices also impacted prices of raw materials for the alloy smelting last week, because FeMo smelters turned inactive in restocking moly concentrates after feeling the financial pressure transferred from stainless mills, she added.
As a result, the price of moly concentrates with 45% Mo content in Central China's Henan province slipped to Yuan 3,345/mtu including the VAT on March 22, losing another Yuan 80/mtu from the prior week, Mysteel's tracking showed.
With the weakness on the raw material side, many market insiders adopted a bearish outlook on China's FeMo prices for this week, according to the source.
Source:Mysteel Global
