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Chinese stainless-steel futures ended lower on Tuesday, after falling as much as 2.6% in the session, as traders witnessed higher inventories while downstream users resumed work slowly from holidays.
Stockpiles of 304 stainless steel jumped 15.38% last week to 520,500 tonnes from the week earlier, data from Mysteel consultancy showed.
The most-traded stainless steel contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange, for May delivery, closed down 1.8% at 14,900 yuan ($2,301.76) per tonne. It dropped to 14,775 yuan earlier during the session.
However, the outlook for the metal is still optimistic on hopes of restocking demand with downstream companies and traditional peak season, analysts with Huatai Futures said in a note.
Other steel prices on the Shanghai bourse gained after China’s industry minister reassured to cut steel production this year.
Construction steel rebar rose 1.8% to 4,732 yuan per tonne.
Hot rolled coil, used in the manufacturing sector, gained 1.1% to 4,907 yuan per tonne.
FUNDAMENTALS
* Benchmark iron ore futures on the Dalian Commodity Exchange closed 1.5% higher at 1,155 yuan per tonne.
* Dalian coking coal surged 3.9% to 1,490 yuan a tonne and coke ended up 1.4% at 2,551 yuan.
* Spot iron ore with 62% Fe content for delivery to China fell by $1 to $174.5 a tonne on Monday, according to SteelHome consultancy. SH-CCN-IRNOR62
* Portside iron ore inventories in China gained to 129 million tonnes last week from 128.65 million tonnes a week earlier. SH-TOT-IRONINV
* Nippon Steel, the world’s No.3 steelmaker, will boost research and development spending to speed decarbonisation in steelmaking as it faces growing pressure to cut carbon emissions to help tackle climate change.
* China’s Inner Mongolia will end all cryptocurrency mining projects and stop reviewing new projects in industries which consume large amounts of energy, such as steel, coke and methanol production.