Shagang holds list prices for steel longs for mid-June sales

Shagang Group (Shagang), China's leading privately-owned steel firm and the country's largest electric-arc-furnace steelmaker, has decided to roll over its long-product list prices for sales for the June 11-20 period from the early June sales cycle, the company announced on June 11.

The Zhangjiagang-based steel group updates its list prices for long products such as rebars three times a month to better reflect market dynamics, as reported.

With its latest pricing policy, Shagang continues to keep its price for HRB400 16-20mm rebar at Yuan 3,400/tonne ($502/t), its HPB300 6-10mm wire rods remain priced at Yuan 3,440/t, and its price for HRB400 8-10mm bar-in-coil is still at Yuan 3,530/t, according to its announcement. All prices are EXW and include the 13% VAT.

The decision seems to reflect the company's strong will to firm long steel prices to protect its profitability against the backdrop of higher prices of steelmaking raw materials recently, especially those of coking coal and coke, Mysteel Global noted.

On Wednesday, two leading steel groups in North China accepted the Yuan 50-55/t increase in their met coke buying prices being demanded by the independent met coke producers the Mysteel tracks and kick-starting the nationwide acceptance of the sixth coke-price increase since early April, as reported.

On the other hand, despite a mild rebound from late May, spot transactions involving long steel products including rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among the 237 trading houses under Mysteel's coverage still hovered at a low level of 92,278 tonnes/day on average over June 1-10.

Against the lukewarm market sentiment, spot long steel prices dropped further in the first ten days of June, with the spot price of HRB400E 20mm rebar in Shanghai – Shagang's key sales market – being assessed by Mysteel at Yuan 3,250/t including the 13% VAT on June 10, down by a small Yuan 20/t from May 29.

On June 11, Zenith Steel, another steelmaker also based in East China's Jiangsu province, also rolled over its list prices for long steel items for the same sales cycle, Mysteel Global learned.

Source:Mysteel Global