A Fire May Determine The Steel Market Changes In August

According to Taiwan media, the cold-rolled stainless steel plant belonging to the Indonesian Tsingshan Group, which was converted by the mainland steel enterprises, has fired a fire, which has caused its pickling line to be shut down for two months.

Tsingshan hot-rolled stainless steel products have recently been heavily sold, which has seriously affected the market price in Taiwan.

The fire was highly concerned by the industry, and the international nickel price remained high, which caused the price of stainless steel products inside and outside the market to rise in August.

The fire has been confirmed by Tsingshan Group, and said that its pickling line must be shut down for two months, and the orders that have been taken during the period will be transferred back to the mainland to commission the relevant steel mills.

Taiwan’s stainless steel leading factory YUSCO and Tangeng said that Indonesia’s Tsingshan sales platform is mainly hot-rolled products. As for cold rolling mainly used for stainless steel pipe making, the number of cold-rolled products is mostly small, and it is expected to have little impact on the overall market.

Stainless steel industry insiders pointed out that Indonesia’s Tsingshan Group’s steel mills and hot rolled products have an annual production capacity of 3 million metric tons, and the cold rolling mill has an annual output of 300,000 metric tons, which is mainly sold to Southeast Asia, India, Europe, South Korea and other markets, including the Taiwan market. The number of imports per month is nearly 1,000 metric tons.

As the Tsingshan Group Steelmaking Plant uses the laterite nickel raw materials to refine the semi-finished billet and then process it into hot-rolled products, due to the lower production cost, it has recently sold at a price of more than US$100 per metric ton below Taiwan’s domestic products. 50,000 metric tons, seriously impacting the island market, causing great competition pressures such as YUSCO, Tangeng and Walsin.

As long as the price does not change much in the next few days, it is expected that the August price opened before the end of the month will have a moderate increase.