China's steel rebar futures dropped on Friday and marked the biggest weekly loss in nearly four months, as both supplies and inventories picked up. Benchmark rebar prices on the Shanghai Futures Exchange, for January 2020 delivery, lost 5.1% this week, the most since the week ended Aug.11. It closed up 0.2% to 3,437 yuan ($488.29) per tonne on Friday.
Steel rebar inventory rose to 2.89 million tonnes in the week to Thursday from previous week, the first rise in nine weeks, data compiled by Mysteel consultancy showed. The weekly utilisation rates at steel mills in China rose for a second week to 66.85% by Dec. 6.
Hot-rolled coil futures, used in cars and home appliances, edged down 0.2% to 3,621 yuan per tonne. The total steel product stockpiles at Chinese traders stood at 7.55 million tonnes as of Thursday, down from 7.56 million tonnes a week earlier.
The most-traded iron ore futures on the Dalian Commodity Exchange, for January 2020 delivery, fell 0.2% to 621 yuan per tonne. Prices for spot cargoes of benchmark iron ore with 62% iron content for delivery to China unchanged at $90 per tonne on Thursday.
Other steelmaking ingredients were mixed, with Dalian coking coal inching up 0.2% to 1,236 yuan per tonne while Dalian coke down 0.3% at 1,874 yuan a tonne. Shanghai stainless steel futures, for February 2020 delivery, rose 0.8% to 13,950 yuan per tonne.
China's exports are expected to have risen for the first time in four months in November, a Reuters poll showed, though a protracted trade row with the United States and slack global demand mean a sure-footed turnaround in shipments is some way off.
Comments
Comments are closed.