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Chinese steelmaking raw materials dropped on Friday, with coking coal and coke futures diving around 4% and iron ore prices dipping about 3%, as the market is on the lookout for government policy towards steel output controls.
“It will be interesting to see if China will ease its steel curtailment policy after the Winter Olympics,” according to a report by CreditSights.
“While that seems unlikely given the country’s longer-term decarbonization targets, it remains to be seen how strictly the local steelmakers will follow the policy given the lucrative margins across all major steel products,” it added.
The most-traded coking coal futures on the Dalian Commodity Exchange, for May delivery, fell as much as 4.4% to 2,258 yuan ($355.06) per tonne. They were down 2.6% to 2,300 yuan at close.
Coke prices on the Dalian bourse declined 3.3% to 3,082 yuan a tonne, after losing as much as 3.8% earlier during the session.
Benchmark iron ore futures slipped 2.3% to 722 yuan per tonne, while spot 62% iron ore
China’s December iron ore imports slumped 18% month-on-month to 86.07 million tonnes, sending its annual purchase to 1.12 billion tonnes in 2021, down from the record high a year earlier, customs data showed.
Steel prices on the Shanghai Futures Exchange all fell.
Construction used rebar dipped 0.02% to 4,664 yuan a tonne and hot rolled coils edged down 0.3% to 4,772 yuan per tonne.
Shanghai stainless steel futures, for February delivery, ended down 0.8% to 17,895 yuan a tonne.
Source: Reuters