Since March, China's hot rolled and cold rolled steel market did not show a "golden three" peak season scene, but instead of cold trading, prices fell.
In the state of weak demand, in the short term, cold, hot rolled coil market prices may fall further.
Shanghai market, for example, Anshan Iron and Steel production 1.0 mm cold rolled steel plate ST12 offer from March 1, 4,810 rmb/ton to March 14, 4,660 rmb/ton, in nearly half a month's time down 150 rmb/ton.Shougang, Anshan Iron and Steel production 5.5 mm ~ 11.75 mm × 1500 mm × C hot rolled steel coil Q235B offer from March 1, 3910 rmb/ ton to March 14, 3750 rmb/ ton, a cumulative decline of 160 rmb/ ton.
As some downstream enterprises have not yet fully resumed production after the Chinese new year, steel sales fell in February, steel traders had poor sales and shipment difficulties. Some merchants in order to seek sales, digested inventory, in the transaction price to give concessions, resulting in the phenomenon of steel prices secretly dropping more obvious.
Review of February, the Shanghai market, 5.5 mm hot rolled steel in coils prices from February 1, 4010 rmb/ ton to February 29, 3920 rmb/ ton, a cumulative decline of 90 rmb/ ton; 1.0 mm cold rolled sheet steel prices from February 1, 4700 rmb/ ton to February 29, 4660 rmb/ ton, a cumulative decline of 40 rmb/ ton.
For the market market, in the short term, hot rolled plate and cold rolled sheet market may be difficult to have a significant upturn, prices or further decline.
On the one hand, from the point of view of the demand situation, affected by the Chinese New Year holiday and weather factors, the downstream steel-using enterprises in February production and sales data declined.
For example, the automobile industry saw a significant drop in new car sales and passenger traffic in the second and third weeks of February this year. In addition, heavy snow and freezing rain in Henan and Hubei in mid-February also had an impact on automobile sales, resulting in lower-than-expected automobile retail sales and increased automobile inventories in February. According to the latest issue of the China Automobile Dealers Inventory Early Warning Index Survey released by China Automobile Dealers Association, China's automobile dealer's inventory early warning index was 64.1% in February, up 6 percentage points year-on-year, up 4.2 percentage points year-on-year. This shows that the current automobile circulation industry is not in the boom zone.
Entering March, the auto market sales situation is less than expected, but signs of warming appeared. Passenger car market information association data show that in the first half of March, China's passenger car market retail sales reached 355,000 units, up 4% year-on-year, down 4% from the first half of February; since the beginning of this year, the cumulative retail sales reached 3,497,000 units, up 16% year-on-year. In the same period, the wholesale volume of China's passenger car manufacturers reached 357,000 units, down 2% year-on-year and up 50% from early February; the cumulative wholesale volume since the beginning of this year reached 3,757,000 units, up 10% year-on-year.
Home appliance market, to household air conditioning, for example, the industry organization monitoring data show that in March 2024, China's total household air conditioning row production reached 20,320,000 units, an increase of 21.6% year-on-year. Among them, domestic sales discharged 10.880 million units, up 17.6% year-on-year; exports discharged 9.440 million units, up 26.5% year-on-year.
With the later downstream industry on cold rolled steel sheet in coil, hot rolled steel plate consumption increased, cold, hot rolled coil market prices are expected to stabilize.
On the other hand, from the point of view of the supply situation, the supply contraction, and inventory release are less than expected.
China Iron and Steel Industry Association data show that in the first half of March, the key statistics of steel enterprises cumulative production of 20,579,800 tons of crude steel, pig iron 18,437,600 tons, and 19,276,200 tons of steel. Among them, the average daily output of crude steel reached 2.0580 million tons, down 3.38% from a decade ago, down 4.36% year-on-year; the average daily output of pig iron reached 1.8438 million tons, down 1.82% from a decade ago, down 3.97% from the same mouth; the average daily output of steel reached 1.9276 million tons, down 6.65% from a decade ago, down 4.81% year-on-year.
According to the statistics of industry institutions, as of early March, the total steel inventory of 35 major markets in the country was 17,789,200 tons, an increase of 403,900 tons, an increase of 2.32%.
Among them, the inventory of hot rolled steel plates were 3.581 million tons, an increase of 89,600 tons, or 2.62%; cold rolled steel coil inventory was 1.576 million tons, a decrease of 0.12 million tons, or 0.08%. At the same time, the inventory of steel enterprises is also increasing. Data show that as of early March, the key statistical steel enterprises total steel inventory of about 19.5239 million tons, an increase of 1.504 million tons, an increase of 8.35%.
Post time: Mar-20-2024