Taiwan's CSC rolls over steel list prices for Dec sales

China Steel Corp (CSC), Taiwan's largest steel mill headquartered in Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan, has decided to hold its list prices of major steel products for local sales in December to ease the burden on its customers, according to a company release on November 16.

The Taiwanese steel giant has now rolled over its monthly list prices for three straight months, Mysteel Global noted. "The fundamentals of the global steel industry have not seen significant changes so far," the company pointed out in the release.

On the steel supply side, more steel producers may conduct maintenance on their steelmaking facilities or rein-in production in coming weeks, CSC suggested, noting that the on-year decrease in global steel output may reach 70 million tonnes this year.

Meanwhile, steel demand remains lackluster. The World Steel Association predicts that the world's steel demand is likely to decline by 2.3% on year in 2022, mainly because of the impact of COVID restrictions in China and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

Considering the weak demand and negative sentiment, Baoshan Iron & Steel, the listed arm of the world's largest steelmaker China Baowu Steel Group, has decided to cut its list prices for carbon steel hot-rolled coils by Yuan 100/tonne ($14.1/t) for domestic sales in December, as reported.

However, CSC believes that steel demand may recover in the first quarter of 2023 with the replenishment of end-users, as demand in North America and in emerging markets is relatively stable, and auto production and sales in Asia are proving better than expected.

At the same time, China has adopted a series of measures to boost the recovery in the property market and has optimized COVID control measures to ease the impact on economic growth. This too may help the recovery in steel demand, the company predicted.

Many countries have introduced various kinds of economic measures to cushion the blow of the recession, and the US Federal Reserve may slow the pace of interest rate hikes with the lower-than-expected growth in the US Consumer Price Index (CPI) in October, CSC noted, helping commodity prices recover.

In addition, as the production costs of blast-furnace mills have stayed high with the firm prices of steelmaking raw materials, this may also lend some support to steel prices, CSC noted.

Written by Nancy Zheng, zhengmm@mysteel.com

Note: This article has been written in accordance with an article exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and SteelMint.