Posted on 12 Feb 2025
Shagang Group (Shagang), China's leading privately-owned steel producer headquartered in East China's Jiangsu province, has decided to roll over its rebar list prices for sales over February 11-20, the company announced on Tuesday. The steel major has now held its rebar list prices for three successive price periods, Mysteel Global notes.
As a result, Shagang's HRB400 16-20mm dia rebar is still being offered at Yuan 3,500/tonne ($479/t) EXW and including the 13% VAT for mid-February sales, according to the company.
A Jiangsu-based market source suggested Shagang's decision to hold rebar list prices reflected the slow recovery in long steel demand from end-users after the Chinese New Year break and the lack of clarity regarding future market direction.
"Work on construction sites in most parts of the country has been slow to restart after the holiday," he said. "Although many building contractors are expected to gradually resume construction activities around the Lantern Festival (on February 12), the improvement in steel demand seems to be limited in the short run," he added.
"At present, the fundamentals in China's rebar-market are characterized by three 'lows', namely low output, inventories and demand," he observed.
As of February 10, Mysteel's assessment showed the HRB400E 20mm dia rebar price in Shanghai, a major market for Shagang's products, had remained unchanged from the price on January 27, the last working day prior to the holiday, at Yuan 3,380/t and including the 13% VAT.
In addition, on Tuesday the suppressed rebar demand saw the price of the most-traded May rebar contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange slump by Yuan 65/t from the previous day's settlement price when the daytime trading session ended to close at Yuan 3,275/t.
However, Shagang did raise some other longs prices for mid-February sales on Tuesday, the company's release shows. The mill's price for HPB300 6-10mm high-speed wire rod is now listed at Yuan 3,520/t and its HRB400 8-10mm bar-in-coil is priced at Yuan 3,610/t, both up Yuan 100/t in terms of EXW and including the VAT, Mysteel Global notes.
Source:Mysteel Global
