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Ferrous market broadly weaker on persistent demand
concerns
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Mills start another round of cut on coke procurement
prices
(Updates prices and adds bullet points)
By Amy Lv and Dominique Patton
BEIJING, April 28 (Reuters) - Singapore and Dalian iron
ore futures ticked lower on Friday, with the market concerned
over decreasing demand caused by a lingering drop in production
among some loss-making Chinese steel mills.
Some mills in northwest, north, and central China
implemented maintenance on blast furnaces as part of efforts to
curb losses, according to consultancy Mysteel.
The benchmark June iron ore on the Singapore
Exchange was 0.45% lower at $100.75 a tonne, as of 0734 GMT, the
lowest since April 25 when it almost broke the psychological
threshold of $100 a tonne.
The most-traded September iron ore on the Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) ended daytime trading 0.97% lower at 714 yuan ($103.12) a tonne, after briefly seeing a rise of 1.6% the previous day. "Demand has been somewhat suppressed by the (blast furnace) maintenance among some mills; but it's normal to see (iron ore) price rebound to some degree in the short term amid relatively low inventories (at mills)," Huatai Futures said in a note, adding that downward pressure will persist in the long run. The other steelmaking ingredients - coking coal and coke - slumped 3.79% and 2.07%, respectively. A few mills in China's top steel production hub Tangshan kicked off the proposal to lower coke procurement prices by another 100 yuan a tonne on April 27, Mysteel said in a report, adding, this marked the fifth round of coke price drop within April. "This is not the end yet, and we expect to see a few more rounds of (coke) price falls ahead," a Shanghai-based steelmaking raw materials analyst said. Rebar on the Shanghai Futures Exchange fell 1.82% to 3,660 yuan a tonne, hot-rolled coil slid 1.59%, wire rod dropped 0.25%, while stainless steel gained 0.96%. China's biggest listed steelmaker, Baoshan Iron & Steel Co , on Thursday reported a 50.6% fall in first-quarter net profit due to high raw material prices and weaker demand. Markets in China will be closed from May 1 to May 3 for a public holiday.
($1 = 6.9237 Chinese yuan renminbi) (Reporting by Amy Lv and Dominique Patton in Beijing; Editing by Sohini Goswami)
