Decline in China's retail steel stocks narrows on week

Retail stocks of the five major finished steel items stockpiled in the commercial warehouses across China that Mysteel regularly monitors declined on week during May 1-7, the results of Mysteel's latest weekly survey revealed.

But at 0.5%, the pace was significantly slower than the previous week's fall of 2.9% as the May Day holiday over May 1-5 caused transactions and deliveries to slow as well, Mysteel Global noted.

As of May 7, the total inventories of rebar, wire rod, hot-rolled coil (HRC), cold-rolled coil (CRC) and medium plate held by traders in the 132 cities under Mysteel's tracking had edged down by 93,400 tonnes on week to 20.22 million tonnes. This compares with the plunge of 601,100 tonnes in traders' stocks during the previousweek, Mysteel Global calculated based on the data.

Stocks of long steel items comprising rebar and wire rod extended their decline during the week, while those of flat steel products including HRC, CRC and medium plate had edged higher, the survey results show.

Specifically, by May 7 rebar inventories had declined by 0.8% or by 69,200 tonnes on week to 8.29 million tonnes, while stocks of wire rod had thinned by 2.5% or 56,500 tonnes on week to 2.2 million tonnes as of the same day.

The small decline among construction steel products can be largely attributed to the collective replenishmentof end-users after buyers returned from the long break,resulting in a sharp increase in spot trading volume, Mysteel Global noted.

On May 6, the first workday after the break, the trading volume of construction steel comprising rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among the 237 trading houses nationwide under Mysteel's tracking reached 158,719 tonnes that day, the highest daily transaction level since September 30 2024.

Although actual trading was sparse due to the holidays, finished steel prices increased steadily over the week, Mysteel Global noted.

On May 6, Mysteel assessed the national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar at Yuan 3,457/tonne ($508/t) including the 13% VAT, jumping by Yuan 61/t on week, while that of Q235 4.75mm HRC nationwide had risen by Yuan 79/t to reach Yuan 3,478/t including the 13% VAT, also according to Mysteel's assessment.

Finished steel inventories held by traders in Mysteel's smaller sample of 35 cities had also thinned further but more slowly during the week. The same survey shows that the tonnage totaled 12.08 million tonnes as of May 7, down by 0.5% or by 63,900 tonnes on week from April 30.