Since September, spot structural steel prices are still in a narrow range of volatility in the market, "gold nine" traditional peak season steel market demand shows a "weak recovery" state, downstream terminal enterprises to stock according to the single purchase, the demand side is slow to recover, but a series of macro measures to promote consumption continue to land, coupled with high steel production costs, the current steel price bottom support continues to strengthen.
At present, the price of Hangzhou market structural steel 45#50mm is 4000 yuan/ton, up 5 yuan/ton from the beginning of September, an increase of 0.13%, since June, the spot structural steel price has been in the 3970-4070 yuan/ton shock range, the spot steel price fluctuation range is within 100 yuan/ton. At present, the price of structural steel in the Hangzhou market has fallen by 630 yuan/ton from the high price in March, which is at the low level of the price in the past two years.
Up to now, structural steel prices in September narrow volatility. On the one hand, end-demand has been slow to recover. Some enterprises in the downstream terminal have insufficient new orders, mainly by single stock, and the demand is slow to recover, which is the main reason for the pressure on steel prices. On the other hand, strong macro expectations and cost support limit the market decline space. A series of recent macro measures to promote consumption have boosted market confidence, infrastructure, real estate, automobile production and other industries have been introduced good measures, businesses for the traditional peak season demand is expected to pick up, the strong macro expectations have given the current steel price support. Recently, the price of raw materials such as ore and coke has risen, resulting in the production cost of steel mills increasing again, and the support for spot steel prices at the cost end is also increasing.
In mid-September, the mainstream structural steel production enterprises set the listed price of ten days compared with the previous price stable, steel mill price intention is positive, the current East China, Central China and Hebei region 45# listed base price Huai Steel special steel 4150 yuan/ton, Zhongtian Steel 4200 yuan/ton, Chengde Jianlong 4130 yuan/ton, Jiyuan Steel 4190 yuan/ton, Anyang Yongxing 3900 yuan/ton. As can be seen directly from Figure 2, since the structural steel price has fluctuated in a narrow range in June, the listed price of steel mills has been stable, and even if the price of individual enterprises has been reduced, the decline is only 50-100 yuan/ton. In the process of trading steel products, there are a variety of pricing and payment methods, such as weighing price, pricing, self-raising price, to the goods price, etc., and the listed price is the steel sales price announced by the steel mill or the dealer, and in the actual sales process, it will give customers different degrees of preferential prices according to the customer's purchase volume, payment method and other circumstances.
Most steel mills currently use a variety of pricing models, the middle of the listed price is generally used in one, to a certain extent, the fluctuation of the listed price, but also reflects the steel mill for the future steel price expectations. Since June, the spot steel price has fluctuated repeatedly within the price range of about 100 yuan/ton, and the listed price of steel mills has also played a certain influence. In early September, the spot steel price rose and then fell, and in mid-September, the listed price of the steel mill was stable again, which also indicates that the steel mill has a strong price intention for the follow-up steel price, giving the current spot steel price support.
The main raw materials of steel are iron ore and coke, and the price fluctuation of ore and coke has a direct impact on the cost of steel production. Zhuo Chuang information price monitoring, the current iron fine powder Rizhao Port Australian mine PB powder 61.5% of the latest market price 920 yuan/ton, up 15.14% from the beginning of June; Coke port quasi primary coke 2170 yuan/ton or so, with the price of raw coke coal rising, the cost of coke enterprises increased, recently individual coke enterprises began to tentatively shout up 100-110 yuan/ton. Iron ore and coke accounted for 70%-80% of the raw materials for the production of structural steel products, and the rise in the price of iron ore and coke directly promoted the increase in the production cost of steel mills.
At present, the production cost of structural steel 45#50mm in the long process of small and medium-sized production enterprises is about 3961 yuan/ton, an increase of 258 yuan/ton compared with the beginning of June, an increase of 6.97%, and the production cost of steel mills has increased significantly. At the same time, the spot structural steel price has been in 100 yuan/ton of repeated oscillations, the increase in costs has compressed the profit margin of the steel mill, resulting in the profit of the steel mill from the beginning of June -73 yuan/ton down to the current -176 yuan/ton, a decrease of 141.10%, most steel mills since June continued to operate in a loss state. At present, the blast furnace construction of steel mills is at a high level, mainly for ore and coke just need to buy, the production cost of steel mills is high, and the steel mills are mostly in a state of loss operation, and the steel mills have positive price intention.
Excavator sales have been regarded as the "wind vane" of domestic economic development, structural steel products in the downstream terminal industry to excavator-dominated construction machinery industry steel accounted for about 40% of structural steel consumption. According to the data released by the China Construction Machinery Industry Association, in August this year, 26 excavator manufacturers sold 13,100 units of various types of excavators, an increase of 0.05 million units from the previous month, an increase of 3.97%; Domestic sales of 0.57 million units, an increase of 0.06 million units from the previous month, an increase of 11.76%.
According to the data, excavator sales data in August picked up after four consecutive months of decline, which was mainly driven by the introduction of relevant policies in the real estate industry. Excavator is widely used in all kinds of engineering construction, the most sensitive response to changes in downstream demand, real estate investment in the third quarter, housing new starts to stabilize and improve, downstream demand for construction machinery is expected to improve marginal, with the promotion of consumption and accelerate the landing of special debt and other policy requirements, subsequent terminal demand is expected to further improve. Overall, the macro side to promote economic recovery as the main keynote, a series of policies to stabilize the economy and promote consumption is expected to continue to force, coupled with steel production costs to increase again, "gold nine" traditional peak season, steel market terminal demand weak recovery state is expected to further improve, is expected to be stable in September steel prices stronger operation.
