| Yeih United Group to win membership of China Steel. (May17) | ||||||
| China Steel, the largest mill in Taiwan will be soon to take place its annual conference for stock holders. Market analysts indicate the strongest competitve comes from Yieh United Group which owned 3% share of China Steel, and expected to win 1~3 seats on board of director of China Steel. The acquisition of three seats will enable Yieh Group to share more supply resource from China Steel. | ||||||
| China raises the alarm towards steel and cement industry (May 13) | ||||||
| Recently, China's central bank issued an executive report about monetary policy for the first quarter of 2004. In this report China raised the alarm towards steel industry and cement industry. According to the report, China's central bank carried on an investigation in investment instance in steel and cement industry. The result shows that up to the end of February this year 42% funds for investment projects came from bank loans. The ratio of gross liabilities to gross assets is 45% more for both steel industry and cement industry. | ||||||
| Price of H beam steel high in Taiwan (May 12) | ||||||
| The price of H beam steel in Taiwan stays high. The allocations of H beams steel are fulled booked for Taiwanese mills. The current price level is around NT 20500/mt. Since March this year, the price H beam steel has kept increasing. Although the steel raw material is dropping, H beam steel price still stays high. Buyers expect H beam steel price to drop in order to match the dropping level of steel raw material. However, Taiwanese H beam steel suppliers are not going to decrease price at all due to the allocation is fully booked. | ||||||
| Steel prices falling in China (May 11) | ||||||
| China's steel prices have started falling due to credit tightening and a clampdown on over-invested sectors. Prices of major steel products in most Chinese cities had fallen for six successive weeks since mid-March. Steel rod prices had fallen 17 percent from the start of March to $393 per tonne But steel prices were still 30 percent higher than a year earlier, The government has taken a raft of measures since last year to try to slow economic growth, including raising bank-reserve requirements three times and curbing investment projects to cool sectors such as property, steel and cement. Policy makers are trying to guide China's economy to a soft landing without abruptly braking growth, triggering higher unemployment or disrupting imports that would hit global markets. | ||||||
| China's steel sector still red hot (May 10) | ||||||
| Despite strict measures by the central government to chill the red-hot industry, China’s steel sector continued overinvestment during the first quarter. Fixed-asset investment in the steel industry amounted to US$4.04 billion in the first quarter, up 107.2 per cent over the same period of last year; China produced 67.26 million tons of steel products in the first three months, up 29.47 per cent from the same period of last year. Officials predict that China will produce 277 million tons of steel products this year; and if all the steel factories and projects under construction are finished, by 2005 will reach 330 million tons. Despite the overheat, there is still a good phenomenon, some big steel makers are introducing new production lines, upgrading their facilities and modernizing technology, which will be good and necessary for the industry's healthy growth. | ||||||
| KHC's new plan in Mainland (May 7) | ||||||
| Kao Hsing Chang Iron & Steel Corp. (KHC) said that they have a plan to build a cold-rolled plant in Mainland China. The turnover of CR coils will be mainly supplied to China domestic customers to produce galvanized steel & pre-painted galvanized steel coils. This new investment plan will be discussed at the shareholder meeting on May 31. After the shareholders and Taiwan government approves this project, KHC will provide an application of building a CR plant to the Chinese government. It is too early to say if the project would be workable as the Mainland China government just publicized a new policy of “macroeconomic control". | ||||||
| CSC' 2004 profit could exceed it's forecast (May 6) | ||||||
| China Steel Corp., Taiwan's largest steelmaker, said this year's profit may go over its forecast. They are positive about its profit forecast and room for further price increases to bring its prices with the international market. The company said sales in April climbed a third to NT$14.3 billion from a year ago. Pretax profit in the first month was NT$18 billion, or 43 percent of its full-year forecast. | ||||||
| Yeou Yih Steel expanding its furnace capacity (May 5) | ||||||
| Yeou Yih Steel (YYS), one of the biggest stainless steel plate manufactures in Taiwan, is planning to expand its furnace production capacity from 36,000/MTY to 54,000/MTY to meet growing demands from the steel market. The length of the furnace will be enlarged from 8m to 10m; YYS needs to shut down the furnace momentarily and stop booking orders untill the end of Aug, 2004. The price of S.S. NO.1 plate is expected to stay at high level for the coming three months in the domestic market of Taiwan. | ||||||
| Taiwan will import carbon steel plate (May 4) | ||||||
| Taiwan’s Bureau of Foreign Trade announced that they initially agreed to import carbon steel plate of thickness ranged 4.75~50mm from Mainland China to ease tight supply of Taiwan domestic market. Previously Taiwan government disagreed to import carbon flat products because China Steel Corp. (CSC) has produced the same products. However, after the related industry reflected that the market’s shortage situation was serious, Bureau of Foreign has agreed to the import proposal, which will be effective the end of this year. | ||||||
| Yieh Loong raises May selling price (May 3) | ||||||
| Yieh Loong enterprise announces new price for May production. Due to high costs of slabs, the mill is forced to adjust price for hot rolled coils at NTD 500/Mt, for cold rolled coils at NTD 200/Mt and for HGI coils at NTD300/Mt higher than last month. Demand from China is soften recently, however, is expected to recover once stock materail is used and the summer is over. The other major supports would be the shortage of raw materail and semi-finished products. | ||||||
| Despite warns on over-investment of steel in China (Apr 30) | ||||||
| Despite warns on over-investment of steel, Jinan Iron and Steel Group, the Chinese steelmaker, is planning to expand capacity in the next few years. Although China enhanced the capital scale for investment of steel, the company expects to get funds by issuing shares on the Shanghai stock market and collecting from its 38,000 employees. Jinan Iron'leadrers forecast prices for high-value products to remain strong in China over the next four years, the confidence is also from increasing demand for relatively sophisticated steel products from farm and heavy vehicle manufacturers in Shangdong province. | ||||||
| Market not follow Yieh Loong’s new price (Apr 29) | ||||||
| Although Yieh Loong posted its increased prices in May, market will not follow up. If mills decided to raise the prices on products, market would follow immediately at the beginning of 2004. Now it is different, supply and demand is low, especially the steel plat market is still stagnancy. Some companies have full confidence that the steel plat market would revive in May. | ||||||
| Yieh Loong’s new prices for May (Apr 28) | ||||||
| Yieh Loong announced its new May domestic prices yesterday (27). The hot rolled steel price will increase NT$500/mts from NT$16900/mt to NT$17600 /mts. Cold rolled steel price will increase NT$200/mts from $19400/mts to NT$19600/mts. HGI will increase NT$300/mts from $20500/mts to NT$20800/mt. CGI prices is still NT$23500/mts. The main reason to rise is that slab price is on the rising trend and they need to reflect increased costs of raw materials. | ||||||
| Imported cold rolled coils has an advantage in the US. (Apr 27) | ||||||
| In the U.S. market, cold-rolled coils quoted for June and July shipment, mainly from Southeast Asia, Taiwan, South Korea, and China, has been $60/ton, which is below the domestic prices. Quotes are reported as low as $33.50~$34 per hundredweight (about $670~$680 a ton), while July's domestic price for commercial cold-rolled sheet from those countries, for instance, USS-Posco Industries and Pittsburg Calif, would be more than $37 per cwt. Such an import offer is described as a “hiccup” resulting from China’s recent “hiatus” in buying, with a little chance to send the market into a tailspin at all –as the overall supply still remains tight. | ||||||
| Taiwan planning investment in India (Apr 26) | ||||||
| Taiwan's foreign investment is focusing on China at the moment, in order to decrease possibilities of high risk investment, the government of Taiwan plans to promote India market. India is a huge country with its population more than one billion, India has made a great progress and development in recent years due to her open policy. Although India's average GNP is USD507 only, they have made a great economic growth rate from 6.8% to 7% per year. Taiwan's export to India is less than one billion US dollars and that only stands for 1.5% of India annual import. | ||||||
| CSC extends cooperation relationship with Sumitomo (Apr 23) | ||||||
| Taiwan's China Steel Corp. (CSC) keeps discussing the cooperation project with Sumitomo in the past few months. They plan to set up a joint venture in Mainland of China, which is possible to produce auto steel plates and computer cases after reviewing the current market situation. The project is expected to fulfill by the end of this year. CSC expressed that it was a trend to have alliance with other foreign steel mills to gain more benefits. Last May, CSC & Sumitomo invested ¥30 billion (about US$275 million) to set up a joint venture called East Asia Corp. In terms of this cooperation project, CSC will get a minimum of 1.8 million tons of steel billets per year to avoid a shortage of raw materials. | ||||||
| Yieh Phui's Q1 EPS forecasted over US$0.03 (Apr 22) | ||||||
| Yieh Phui Enterprise Co., Taiwan’s largest private galvanized steel plant, expects to have an EPS over NT$1 (US$0.03) for its first quarter operation. In domestic market, Yieh Phui raised price by NT$500/mt (US$15/mt) for April delivery due to increasing cost of raw materials. Yieh Phui said that Q2 sales performance is expected good as the global demand keep strong. Yieh Phui’s main products are hot dipped galvanized steel coil, pre-painted galvanized steel coil, Galvalume & Galfan. | ||||||
| New cold rolled steels price in Taiwan (Apr 21) | ||||||
| Present cold rolled steel price in Taiwan stays at NT$19500/mt, a little lower than last month; however, hot rolled steel price is still in a good shape maintaining from NT$19000/mt to NT$19300 /mt. Yieh Loong mill (Taiwan) also lowers the cold rolled steel price at NT$19500/mt to meet the market trend. But the cold rolled market is still cold Even though the price has been lowered down. | ||||||
| Yieh group keeps purchasing China Steel's stock (Apr 20) | ||||||
| Following Yieh Phui Enterprise's (one of the members of Yieh Group) purchase of China Steel Co.'s stocks, Yieh United Steel Corp (YUSCO), a prominent steel company of Yieh group, is also planning to purchase China Steel's stocks. Professionals of the industry recognize that the "Yieh" Group intends to take a couple of seats of the board of director of China Steel Co.. YUSCO is becoming the only giant of stainless steel in Taiwan. | ||||||
| The Q1 steel price goes up 39.9% in China (Apr 19) | ||||||
| China’s Commerce dept. reported that the Q1 steel price was up by 39.9% in comparison with the same period of last year. The total production turnover was up 31.7% to 43.4 million tons in the first 2 months; the import volume also went up to 21.5% in the same period. Besides, the steel price-hiking rate is getting slow down, with 5.7% soar in January, 4.2% in February, & 2.2% in March. some experts expect that the China demand would keeps strong in Q2 but the price would be a little weak due to many sources. | ||||||
| Taiwan isn't imposed tariff on SS coils by Canada (Apr 16) | ||||||
| Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) decides to levy temporary tariffs that are up to 108% for anti-dump and anti-subsidiary on stainless steel coils, which were imported from India, Switzerland, South Korea and United States. According to an investigation by CBSA, those stainless steel coils imported from Switzerland and South Korea would be levied upon 108% temporary tariffs on average, and 100% temporary tariffs on average for America. Moreover, a 6.2% tariff for anti-subsidiary would be levied upon those stainless steel coils imported from India. Simultaneously, CBSA also judged that those stainless steel coils imported from Taiwan did not need to be imposed because of less quantity. | ||||||
| First free trade airport in Taiwan (Apr 15) | ||||||
| Following approvals of Kaohsiung and Keelung becoming the first two free trade sea ports in Taiwan, the Tao Yuan Shiang airfreight terminal at the CKS International Airport may be the first free trade airport on the island. The free trade airport could begin operations as early as the third quarter of the year. The development of free trade ports will help Taiwan boost global freight businesses and bolster Taiwan's active international trade, it will also releave those companies which predict a slim chance for direct transportation links with the mainland under the ruling by the current govertment. Officials said that the most significant advantage of the free trade ports is that they are exempt from the government's current restrictions and are free of income tax. Imported machinery and other production facilities are also free of import duties | ||||||
| China's steel prices climb up in the first quater (Apr 13) | ||||||
| Steel prices in china's domestic market rose about 37.3 percent year-on-year in the first quarter, pushed by increasing domestic demands as well as continuous growth in prices of raw materials, energy resources and the global steel market. The Ministry of Commerce said Monday that investment in infrastructures and industrial production was increased highly recently, which had brought rapid development of trades requireing large quantities of steel, though the increase of steel output had somewhat slowed down the price surge. Experts said that steel prices would continue to rise in the second quarter, with the consumption still rising and the supply of raw materials and fuels likely to remain shortage | ||||||
| Taiwan and China's fastener makers imposed tarrifs by Canada (Apr 12) | ||||||
| Taiwan and China were informed by Canada government that Leland Industries Inc. (Canada) has appealed that Canada government should impose an anti-dumping tarrif on Taiwan and China's carbon & stainless steel fastener makers as their prices have been unreasonably low, and that has impacted Canada's markets. Canada government will actuate import tarrifs No. 73.18.11.00, 73.18.12.00, 71.18.14.00, 73.18.15.00, and 73.18.16.00. on the two countries as a response to Leland Industries Inc's accuse. Taiwan is investigating the case and believe that there are misunderstandings that she need to communicate with Canada. | ||||||
| Iron Ore Demand Reaches 500 million tons in China this year (Apr 9) | ||||||
| Zoujian, chairman of China Metallurgical Mining companies' association, pointed out that demand for iron ore in China in 2004 would reach 500 million tons, including domestic production 320 million tons and imports 180 million tons. In recent years China has imported more iron ore. China's main iron ore import countries are Australia、Brazil、India、South Africa, and Peru, etc. With the expansion of China steel capacity, increasing dependence on import iron ore will bring a confussing situation to the China markets; that's a serious problem. | ||||||
| Demand for stainless steel sheet rising in 2004 (Apr 7) | ||||||
| Stimulated by the global demand for ss sheet, including European Union, Asia, and United States, the sheet production expected to be increased in 2004. Due to the weak car industrial in 2003, EU had reduced more than 500 thousand tones in the sheet production and expected to increase in 2004 due to the car industrial recovery. In Asia, Korean and Japan had a 6.5% growth of the sheet production due to a big demand for domestic car industrial. Both of the two countries are continuously to increase in 2004. China will also increase 1000 thousand tonnes in 2004 because of a big domestic demand. | ||||||
| CSC pretax profit rose in Mar (Apr 6) | ||||||
| China Steel Corp., Taiwan's largest steel maker, posted a pretax profit of NT$4.77 billion (US$1=NT$32.962) in March, up from NT$4.53 billion in the same month last year. China Steel's revenue totaled NT$12.63 billion last month, up from NT$10.64 billion a year earlier. Steel price has been rising since 2002, backed by strong demand in China, a global economic recovery and an easing glut of steel supply, boosted China Steel's earnings performance.In the first quarter of the year, China Steel's pretax profit was NT$12.64 billion on revenue of NT$35.56 billion. In the first quarter of 2003, the firm reported a pretax profit of NT$10.83 billion on revenue of NT$30.43 billion. | ||||||
| Anti-dumping investigation of China’s carbon steel (Apr 5) | ||||||
| On 29 March of 2004, Canadian Border Service Office informed the department of commerce of Chinese embassy in Canada that Canadian Border Service Office had received an eligible requisition for an anti-dumping and an anti-subsidiary investigations on these products of carbon steel, stainless steel nuts, stainless steel screw and stainless steel fastener, which were original produced or imported from China and Taiwan. At present, investigations are in the progress and a decision will be issued before 28 Arial of 2004, whether to carry through anti-dumping investigation, anti-subsidiary investigation or both. It is reported that in terms of a regulation listed on item No. 13 of WTO’s anti-subsidiary arrangement China has right to negotiate these issues with relative aspect of Canada before investigations start. | ||||||
| China Steel Co. raising shipbuilding plate price (Apr 2) | ||||||
| Taiwan’s China Shipbuilding Corp. received the advice from China Steel yesterday that Q2 price is hiked by 22% for shipbuilding steel plate. Also, China Steel cancels the quantity discount NT$400/mt (USD12/mt) beginning from April 01. China Shipbuilding Corp. expressed that they did not expect the cancellation of quantity discount from China Steel. The plate price hikes too much. They are afraid that they are not able to achieve the earning estimate NT$350 million (US$10.6 million) this year. China Shipbuilding Corp. said that their capacity is fully booked till 2007 year. | ||||||
| China out in front as the world's biggest non-ferrous metal producer (Apr 1) | ||||||
| News from China Non-ferrous Metal Industry Association that total sales of non-ferrous metal manufacturers in China increased by 30.96 per cent year-on-year to 360.34 billion yuan (US$43.51 billion) in 2003. Output of 10 key non-ferrous metals reached 12.05 million tons last year, up 19.07 per cent from 2002, which kept China out in front as the world's biggest non-ferrous metal producer for a second year. China copper output grew by 12.71 per cent year-on-year to 1.84 million tons in 2003, according to statistics. And 5.56 million tons of aluminium were produced last year, a jump of 26.85 per cent from a year earlier. The remaining output comprised lead, zinc, nickel, stannum, mercury, magnesium, sponge titanium and antimony. Output of the nation's finished copper products shot up by 32.61 per cent year-on-year to 3.30 million tons last year. That of finished aluminium products reached 3.63 million tons, up 33.30 per cent. | ||||||
| Yieh Phui keeps buying CSC stocks (Mar 30) | ||||||
| Yieh Phui Enterprise Co., a company belongs to Yieh group, has kept buying China Steel Co. (CSC)'s stocks since Feb right after last Chinese New Year. YP bought 20 millions share of CSC's stocks at NT$29.44 (US$0.88), and bought another 31 million shares on Mar 19 at NT$32.206 (US$0.96), then on Mar 24 PH bought again 45.5 million shares at NT$33.178 (US$0.99). Totally Yieh Phui has bought about 97 million shares of CSC's stocks at a sum of NT$3.1 billion (US$0.93 billion). Does this action imply Yieh group's (the largest private steel group in Taiwan) interest in taking a place in CSC's Board of Committee? That's ambitious. :-) | ||||||
| Yieh Loong raised NT$400(US$12) on HR; NT$600(US$18) on CR in Apr. (Mar 29) | ||||||
| Yieh Loong Corp. announced their new carbon steel prices list for domestic market in April. YL was to increase NT$400(US$12)/mt on HR, NT$600(US$18)/mt on CR,and NT$600(US$18)/mt on Hot-galvanized. Its new price list was about NT$17,100 (US$515)/mt on HR, and NT$19,400(US$585)/mt on CR . The coil center's price was NT$19500~20500(US$585~US$616) on HR .and NT$21,500(US$645) on CR. Their exported carbon steel prices, YL was to increase US$10 on CR , and same price on HR . | ||||||
| YUSCO performed outstandingly in Feb (Mar 26) | ||||||
| As the price of stainless steel kept increasing, Yieh United Steel Co. (YUSCO) had made an outstanding sales record which was much better again than the previous month. YUSCO profited at NTD420 million (about USD12.5 million) in Feb. In Jan YUSCO profited NTD390 million (about USD11.6 million), and expect march at USD450 million (about USD13.4 million). | ||||||
| Steel industry bounced back in Taiwan's stock market (Mar 25) | ||||||
| Although it's been a little bit noisy with protests in front of the President mension since last Saturday (Mar 19) after the presidential election in Taiwan, and the island's stock market had performed negatively at the first three days, but today the steel industry has reflected a strong industrial strength; most steel companies have bounced back to the stock market. | ||||||
| Updated HR & CR prices in China (Mar 23) | ||||||
| As the steel materials of down stream makers are running out of stock, Most China's importers have started booking carbon HR and CR from global markets again. The situation has been continuing for months since Chinese new year holiday. The latest price information for 3.0mm HR in China market is about RMB4710~RMB4730, and CR is about RMB5600~RMB5700. | ||||||
| Taiwan's dramatical event (Mar 22) | ||||||
| Well, it was an extremely dramitical event which happened in this island just a half day before her Presidental election-the President Chen Suibien was assassinated, but just skin hurt. Of course that impacted the election, and also impacted the stock market. Taiwan's stock market turned almost completely black at 99.96% today, owing to the assassination and KMD's appeal for re-accounting the ballots. It's a tough time for the people of the island. | ||||||
| Taiwan short of carbon steel (Mar 19) | ||||||
| Taiwan is still short of hot rolled carbon steel; China keeps selling hot rolled carbon steel to Taiwan at high prices. China's domestic markets' demand for hot rolled carbon steel is not that strong recently, that makes China more aggressive to export hot rolled carbon steel to other countries; Taiwan is one of the main targets as Taiwan is now in strong shortage of hot rolled carbon steel. | ||||||
| YUSCO launching new plant into China (Mar 18) | ||||||
| Yieh United Steel Corp. (YUSCO), decided to launch a giant steel mill into china with an annual capacity over 1 million tons. The original plan was to build a CR plant, with a budget at only about US$120 million, but yesterday YUSCO decided to increase the investment by US$673 million to build a steel melting mill, including HR & CR plant. The new plant in China is expected to complete at the end of 2008 year. It will become the largest or second largest giant stainless steel mill in Mainland China. | ||||||
| YUSCO and Yieh Hsing to be merged together (Mar 17) | ||||||
| Taiwan's Yieh United and Yieh Hsin are giving another try on merging together. Last year this task had been operated, yet the shares transfered at 1:5 from YUSCO to Yieh Hsin failed to pass the authority's regulations; this year the Yieh companies came back again, and have adjusted their shares transfered at 1:3.22 from YUSCO to Yieh Hsin; the local steel market sees the case potential. | ||||||
| Taiwan postpones mimor public constructions (Mar 16) | ||||||
| As an economic recovery and a strong demand on steels, the steels price in Taiwan has increased unbearably. Especially in real estate and automobile industries, the increasing steels price is causing expensive costs for them; government' budget is limited and far behind the steel price, frequently the government has to announce that they will temporarily postpone some minor public construction. | ||||||
| East Asian steel prices took a breather (Mar 15) | ||||||
| East Asian steel prices have eased off as buying in the region weakens. But market analysts thought the decline, in the wake of the recent highs, is more a market correction than the beginning of a spiral decline for steel prices. One Singaporean merchant remarked that everyone is taking a break right now, with no threat of imminent price crash looming. Buyers’ sentiment is just getting more cautions at this moment. For instance, in China, CIS-origin HR coil retreated by $10/mt, and the semi-finished products down by $20~30/ton. A Hong Kong trading house commented thou there’s little buying interest in high cost, buyers will get back to the market in two weeks after the Far East market fully digests the news of the revoke of steel import tariffs in Indonesia and Vietnam. | ||||||
| Wire rod keeps hiking in Taiwan (Mar 12) | ||||||
| Though China Steel Co. has raised wire rod price at an increase of NTD2700 (USD80.6) per ton for the 2nd season, downstream makers are still chasing the company for the material. Cheng Jerhao, the vice president of sales department of China Steel pointed out that China Steel shares 46% of Taiwan’s wire rod market, other peers share 31% of it, and imported 23%. He said China Steel actually hasn’t reflected completely current price situation on international market, but they might consider reducing their wire rod supply in 3rd season. Besides China Steel, other wire rod manufactures such as Yieh Hsing and Jia Yi will also decrease their supplies. The wire rod currency might have another hike again in 3rd season. | ||||||
| SS markets remain strong despiting nickel drops (Mar 10) | ||||||
| An analysis indicated that by stainless steel industrial experts, stainless steel markets will remain strong despiting the nickel price drops. The stainless steel demands are still very strong in Taiwan. Yieh United Steel Co. (YUSCO) reports that the current SS prices have dropped 3%-5%; in addition, nickle price is expected to increase again. Therefore, stainless steel future is looking great. | ||||||
| Screw manufacturers to raise their price (Mar 9) | ||||||
| After Yieh Hsing and China Steel announced their 2Q wire rod price, the wire rod has reached to NT$19000/MT. It is the highest record since 1993 and 30~46% higher than 1Q price. Other processing industries such as wire mills in the island also reflected the cost and raised their prices to NTD23000~NTD24000/MT. Attempts to offset the higher raw material costs, screw mills in Taiwan are to raise their selling price, too. | ||||||
| YUSCO sees SS market remaining strong (Mar 8) | ||||||
| According to stainless steel industrial expert, stainless steel market will remain strong although the nickel price drops. The stainless steel demand is still very strong currently. Taiwan's YUSCO indicates that the current drop3%-5%. In addition, nickle price is expected to increase again. Therefore, stainless steel future is looking great. | ||||||
| Imported steels tariffs free in Vitnam (Mar 4) | ||||||
| A statement of removing all tariffs on imported steel products was signed in Vitnam by her Deputy Minister of Finance-Truong Chi Trung. The imported steels tariffs were ranged from 5% to 40%. The Vice Chairman of Vietnam Steel Association said this decision will help lower costs for domestic construction firms. The Vietnamese traders are importing steel ingot at prices between US$450-US$460 per ton, which is up from US$270/ton in last December. The construction steel products are selling around US$510/ton. Vietnam is using about 210,000 tons of steel products a month. Traders have already signed contracts to import about 350,000 tons of ingot from February to May. | ||||||
| Yieh Hsing increased SS wore rod in Mar (Mar 2) | ||||||
| An attempt to offset the markup on stainless steel billet and scrap price, Yieh Hsing increased NT$4500/MT~ NT$5000/MT on stainless steel wire rod. After a strike from the Falconbridge(the 3rd biggest nickel manufacturer), the LME nickel price fell to US$13900/MT a week ago, but it soon climbed to US$14500/MT. Despite the sharp fluctuation on nickel, many stainless steel mills think that there is a room for further increase in the near future. Yieh Hsing said the surcharge really posted a great pressure to the downstream mills such as the wire and screw mills. | ||||||
| YUSCO's new price for Mar (Mar 1) | ||||||
| YUSCO hiked about NTD4000/ton for its HR and CR stainless coils as new pricings in March, also synchronized by other local big mills, and down-stream factories. It’s also expected they will accordingly raise their export price by $100~120/MT to quote in March as well. Thou Falconbridge, the world’s 3rd largest Nickel producer, has settled a new contract with its workers, but now is threatened with another strike by its office, clerical and technical staff yet, whose current work contract expires on Feb. 28th, as a new contract is being offered, yet rejected, and now negotiated in the process. This news pulled Nickel back to around $14500 today, speculated to move in an upward swing next week. “Maximize availability first” is now the main strategy in lieu of getting best offer for most global steel traders as demand way outstrips supply, plus skyrocketing cost of raw material in steel! | ||||||
| CSC's new price for Q2 HR (Feb 27) | ||||||
| China Steel Co. (CSC) announced their domestic carbon steel prices is to increase NT$2800 (US$85) on HR, NT$3200(US$95) on HR Plate , NT$2450(US$75) on CR ,and NT$2700(US$80) on Wire rod for second quarter transaction. It was a huge adjustment with about 23% on HR carbon steel price in the recent years . | ||||||
| Mad slab price (Feb 26) | ||||||
| Just this few days some steel traders in Taiwn purchased slabs at a price about USD530/Mt C&F Iran. The quantity was about 70,000Mt. Only two weeks ago, Taiwan's Yieh Loong had bought slab at a price about USD480/Mt. People in the industry seem not too surprised, as the material is in serious shortage, buyers are forced to accept the price increase. However, with such a high price it would be difficult to survive in the market; other people see the next couple of weeks would be an observing period to see how the market accept the new mad price. | ||||||
| Carbon steel wire to raise NT$300/MT~NT$800/MT in Taiwan (Feb 25) | ||||||
| As a sharply increase on the international raw materials, Taiwanese Carbon Steel Wire Mills all see it in common that to raise their selling price is something unavoidable. Mills estimate the increase in the margin of NT$300 to NT$800 per ton. The final rise will determine when the China Steel Corp announces the 2Q wire rod domestic price on Feb 26. Some mills even predict that the wire rod could possibly raise NT$2000 per ton. | ||||||
| March SS price up in Taiwan (Feb 24) | ||||||
| The steady high price of nickle and a shortage of raw materials is keeping stainless steel price high. Stainless steel experts indicate that this year there is none reason for stainless steel price to drop. The stainless steel price will remain high for the entire year of 2004. | ||||||
| U.S. Imported steel prices jumped by $100/ton. (Feb 23) | ||||||
| U.S. import steel prices have jumped about $100 a short ton just in the past few weeks as U.S. buyers are willing to open their deep pockets purchasing whatever steel needed, foreign or domestic, in face of the rising cost, low inventories as well as shortage of the domestic steel. Recent ordering of low-carbon rods offshore landed at $520~540 a ton, up from $420~440 a ton just a few weeks ago, with hot-rolled sheet import bid for the second quarter shipment going high around $560~580 per ton, up by $120, now even higher than China's. We are now higher priced than China. Our prices have gone above their prices," a U.S. sheet buyer said, adding that he recently booked 200,000 tons of hot-rolled coil from offshore at $570 a ton. World steel production is now affected by tight supplies of such raw materials as scrap, iron ore and coke, causing buyers to take high-priced steel offerings that would have not have been considered just a month ago. The total supply chain is now going thru a real education right now”, said a U.S. steel dealer. Which is the prevailing steel sourcing strategy has shifted from tryng to get the best price "TO TRYING TO GET THE MOST MATERIAL ON HAND FIRST”, as smart players have figure it out today’s winning strategy is “MAXIMIZE STEEL AVAILABILITY. In order to cope, they had to change the way they do in steel business. | ||||||
| Steel prices expected not to drop this year (Feb 20) | ||||||
| Some people worry that the steel price may drop this year as the steel price has increased too much within these few months. However, steel experts forcast that the steel price will not drop dramatically due to low steel stock in general. In addition,currently many steel mills in the global market are under intergration;therefore, the production capacity will be under good control. As long as the European and USA steel markets are still in high demand, the steel price will not drop this year. | ||||||
| SS export prices raised again from Taiwan (Feb 19) | ||||||
| An attempt to offset higher raw material costs and a weaker US dollars, Taiwanese stainless steel mills set firmly increase on export price. The current price for 304 cold rolled coil of 2mm thickness is about $2,430 per tonne fob and 304 hot rolled coil are now $2,280-2,300 per tonne fob and around $50 per tonne higher for hot rolled sheet. Even though these are extremely good prices for oversea buyers, many Chinese end-users rarely accept price beyond $2,200 per tonne fob for hot rolled coil. A source at one trader said some of the oversea buyers scheming to purchase the additional stock have been rejected by Taiwanese mills due to maintain the ample supply for the domestic market. | ||||||
| CSC expects an anual profit between US$1.45~1.52 billion this year (Feb 18) | ||||||
| China Steel Corp. (CSC) plans to announce new price for Q2 delivery orders on Feb. 26. Because the supply is very tight & its price for Q1 shipment is lower than global pricing, the market people expect that the price hike is around NT$1000~3000/mt (US$30~90/mt) for different steel products. Especially for carbon hot rolled & cold rolled products, the downstream makers expect that the price hike shall be higher than previous expectation. Therefore, the stock market’s analysts said that CSC’s profit goal of 2004 year is possible to go up to 48~50 billion Taiwan dollars (about US$1.45~1.52 billion). | ||||||
| Specialty steel makers revised their sales price according to base materials (Feb 16) | ||||||
| Specialty steel makers start to revise the sales prices according to the raise of base material prices, such as cobalt, nickel. Stainless makers such as Nippon Steel & Sumikin Stainless Steel (NSSC) declared the sales prices for distributors in conjunction with nickel prices. Hitachi Metals decided to amend the sales prices of tool steel and heat resisting steel according to cobalt prices from February contracts. Specialty steel makers had tried to increase the sales prices by rationalization and individual negotiation with users, but material prices have increased rapidly, and makers considered that price hike by these conventional ways was difficult, and they announced sliding scale prices. | ||||||
| EU steel holing up in 2003 (Feb 13) | ||||||
| Final figures for steel production in 2003 are likely to show a modest amount of growth in crude steel output by the 15 EU member states. This is perhaps better than could have been expected given the adverse circumstances under which the industry operated for much of the past twelve months. The EU's generally dismal economic performance last year left steel demand rates similar to 2002. Industrial production, a key driver of steel consumption, was flat. The construction sector, steel's biggest market, is also estimated to have been little changed year-on-year. | ||||||
| Material shortage have minimal impact on building industries (Feb) | ||||||
| Property and construction companies indicates that the shortage in the supply of steel bars is not very likely to raise building costs as the matter of fact that steel only accounted for less than 20% of the raw materials cost on average. Building material analyst said rising steel prices and shortage of steel bars would have minimal impact on building costs as long as other materials such as bricks, cement and labor costs remain stable. | ||||||
| Thai's Thainox petitions for higher tariffs on imported SS (Feb 11) | ||||||
| Thainox Steel, an affiliate of Arcelor Group and Thailand's only stainless steel producer, has sent a petition letter requested the Ministry of Industry of Thailand to raise import tariffs on cold-rolled stainless steel sheets from 5 % to 12 %. Thainox has a production capacity of 160,000 tonnes of stainless steel a year, where 60,000 tonnes is exported. Thailand imported about 60,000 tonnes of stainless steel in 2003, or about 40 percent of domestic consumption. Thainox Steel said that this is because the selling price of imported stainless steel is not much different from the locally produced product. To increase import tariffs to 12 percent will help reduce imports of steel products and protect local makers. | ||||||
| Spain's Acerinox's shut down by a strike (Feb 10) | ||||||
| After a reject of a pay rise and a 35-hour week contract by officer of Acerinox, its EI Campo de Gibraltar stainless steel workers shut down its operations . The plant has capacity to produce 1 million tpy of slab, 870,000 tpy of hot rolled and has a cold rolled capacity of 600,000 tpy. Over 2,000 workers are employed at Campo de Gibraltar. | ||||||
| Stainless price rises (Feb 9) | ||||||
| Speculation is driving the stainless steel market higher. Although global demands are growing, there is insufficient impetus in the major consuming regions to justify the huge increases in raw materials costs. The USA, western Europe, and Japan together account for about half of global stainless consumption, and real demand in all these regions was fundamentally sluggish last year; however, there was growth in stainless demand elsewhere, especially China. There has been a sizeable reduction in global nickel stocks, and the metal's price rose by 130% during the last year. There is also a considerable amount of conjecture in the market. It was speculative dealing that pushed LME nickel through the USD17,000 per tonne level in early January, and the price quickly subsided again. With stainless production and real consumption set to continue growing this year, the downside for the nickel price, and hence for alloy surcharges, looks quite limited. | ||||||
| Copper is going up too! (Feb 6) | ||||||
| Taiwan's First Copper Co. has been performing strongly on Taiwan stock maket for the past couple of weeks, which mostly benifits from frequent good news on global coper market. The strike by workers at Cerro Colorado of Chile has no signal of cease-fire. On the other hand, the US economy data also tells a strong growth on copper industry. Current price of copper futures is estimated soon break over USD2500 moving swiftly towards the top point of USD2609 in year 1997. | ||||||
| Updating Taiwan steel markets (Feb 4) | ||||||
| Yieh United Steel Corp., the largest stainless steel manufacturer in Taiwan, said that they have received inquiries of more than 10,000 tons recently; another steel company - Kao Hsing Chung also announced that they have promised orders of 3,000 tons imported to the US market. In Taiwan, most steel makers are running out of materials, the increasing demands from US market will make the situation even worse; the island's domestic markets see the price of steels are going to rise again very soon. | ||||||
| Nickel goes up again on the strike in Canada (Feb 3) | ||||||
| Nickel is going up again owing to the strike in canada, and is expected to reach USD15,000 again in a very short time. The price of steel is already high in the globle market; the strike will make it even stronger. According to the latest news, Korea and China have temporarily turned off their export orders at the moment. Taiwan is considering following the two countries. | ||||||
| Stainless steel wire rod prices up in Taiwan (Feb 2) | ||||||
| Stainless steel wire rod price has increased at least NT$7000/mt in Taiwan or around NT$8000/mt. Due to strong demand internationally and high nickle price, the price will still keep going up. Currently the stainless steel wire rod market in Taiwan is so strong that the domestic market is in shortage of material. Even though the stainless has increased up so much, the clients still accept the increase. | ||||||
| New export prices by Yieh Loong (Jan 30) | ||||||
| Taiwan's Yieh Loong announsed to raise their exported carbon steel prices as follows: US$50/mt on HR, US$35/mt on CR, and US$45/mt on Hot-galvanized for Feb shipment. This has been a huge price adjustment for carbon steel in the recent years. Moreover, YL is also suffering from a decision on purchasing slabs at a price exceeded US$400/mt. YL; therefore, needs to reduce 10% of quota offered to their old customer in Feb. | ||||||
| YUSCO raised NT$4,500/mt for HR/CR in domestic market (Jan 29) | ||||||
| Taiwan’s biggest private stainless steel mill, Yieh United Steel Corp. (YUSCO), announced to raise NT$4,500/mt (US$140/mt) for both hot rolled & cold rolled products for Feb. delivery domestic orders. The company expressed that international nickel price keeps firm at high level & the market demand is strong. The billet price is hiked by NT$6,000/mt (US$180/mt) this time, reflecting that the supply of wire rod is tight. As to overseas market, it is expected that the price hike is higher than domestic market because the global market has strong demand & Taiwan currency keeps appreciating in recent days against US dollars. | ||||||
| Yieh Loong to hike NT$1000(US$30) on HR & CR domestic prices (Jan 28) | ||||||
| With an attempt to offset higher slab costs and to react on international market prices, YL (Yieh Loong) released the news that domestic carbon steel prices will be increased in Feb. & Mar. transaction. It will boost prices on HR & CR, by NT$1000(about US$30) per tonne. Hot-galvanized by NT$2000 (about US$60). | ||||||
| US$20/ton surcharge in plates after Chinese New Year in Taiwan (Jan 27) | ||||||
| Due to extreme increases in scrap, plate makers in Taiwan are imposing US$20-a-ton raw materials surcharge on their products. Current export price from Russia has reached at C&F US$495/ton, and Indonesia and Romania have stopped quoting at this moment. Japan will offer a new price after Lunar Year Holidays, and expect to increase to C&F US$500/ton at least. Mills emphasize that there will be a further increase to reflect the cost in the near future. | ||||||
| Euro's sharp rising worries European leaders (Jan 20) | ||||||
| EU finance ministers and the European Central Bank united together this Monday, voicing worry about the EURO’s record highs against the dollars. This time, the ministers and the ECB did not mention “strong and stable” EURO as they previously did, whereas, stressing their discontent about the EXCESSIVE PACE of EURO gains, which might choke and stunt export and economic recovery of EU. Thou with little chance for any intervention of the United States, EU stood united, just voicing concern over the recently dramatically sharp appreciation of the EURO. Late Monday, the EURO consequently traded at around $1.2350 due to the objection by EU policymakers to SHARP exchange rate of EURO v. USD. Belgian Finance Minister Didier Reynders remarked that “We need a strong EURO based on a strong economy and I would be worried if we would be getting into more dangerous areas around $1.30.”Now all the world will be waiting to see what G7 Finance Ministers will say about the dollar's two-year decline when they meet in early February | ||||||
| 'Tube China 2004 (Jan 19) | ||||||
| The China International Tube and Pipe Trade Fair- 'Tube China', will be held simultaneously with the China International Wire & Cable Trade Fair' -'wire China', at the Shanghai New International Expo Center from 25-28 October 2004. Organized by Messer D sendorf China Ltd., a daughter company of the German organizers of 'Tube D sendorf, the new exhibition in Shanghai will be totally supported by the International Tube Association, with its world wide membership, and who are also the same 'Industry Partners' for the renowned D seldorf Germany event. Other tube and pipe industry related organizations are expected to add their support in the coming months. | ||||||
| Steel price in Taiwan seem to speculate another hike after CNY holidays (Jan 16) | ||||||
| With Chinese Lunar New Year in less than a week away, buyers are waiting and watching whether nickel is heading south or north, after falling back to around USD14,000/MT from over USD17,000/MT due to profit-taking selling by major traders. On 2003-Nov. base, most steel products hiked by 20~40% in price, yet expected for another raise after the Chinese Lunar New Year on account of huge market demand way over market supply. | ||||||
| Taiwan plans production schedule for Chinese New Year (Jan 15) | ||||||
| Taiwan's steel mills start to arrange overtime production schedule for Chinese New Year holidays to meet strong steel demand from the market. Some local steel mills even shorten the Chinese New Year holidays to increase steel production. China Steel Co. even keep non-stop production during the Chinese New Year Holidays. In order to motivate employees for the overtime working and for working during Chinese New Year, Taiwanese steel mills pay employees double or triple along with other bonus. | ||||||
| China levys ADD for cold rolled (Jan14) | ||||||
| China announces to re-start levying anti-dumping duty for cold rolled steel from five countries, incude South Korea and Taiwan. The rates are between 6-49% and will last for 5 years. After US government terminated section 201 on December 04, 2003, the steel industry expected China will start levy anti-dumping duty for some steel items in order to stablize the domestic steel price. Cold rolled material to be used as raw material of tin-plate will be exempted from the ADD. | ||||||
| China's fast demand for steels in the last decade (Jan 13) | ||||||
| China's demand for steel and steel products has grown at a fast pace in the past decade. In the next five years, both production and demand will continue to grow. This new study examines China's economic trends, investment environment, industry development, supply and demand, industry capacity, industry structure, marketing channels and major industry participants. Historical data (1992, 1997 and 2002) and long-term forecasts throught 2007 and 2012 are presented. Major producers in China are profiled. | ||||||
| Big demand of steel products from US dwonstream buyers after section 201 (Jan 12) | ||||||
| After stop of US section 201 steel protection, big demands of steel products from the US buyers are released. Many international steel traders received inquiries of hot rolled coils for several millions tons. The move is a interesting point for further observation. In the period of 201, US downstream customers need to pay much higher price from local mills for their products. But the suddent big demands from those buyers might not be able to be fulfilled as the big hot rolled steel suppliers in the world seems facing strong domestic comsuptions, such as Korea and CIS contries. | ||||||
| Stainless-steel valves polish up nicely (Jan 9) | ||||||
| The new E177 range of stainless-steel solenoid valves are designed for critical applications in the food, instrumentation, process control and pharmaceutical industries. Manufactured by ACL, a European solenoid valve maker, the new valves build on experience of producing servo-assisted solenoid valves in brass. The new valves feature bodies manufactured from 316 stainless steel and a choice of Viton or EPDM seals making the valves suitable for use on media incompatible with brass such as demineralised and deionised water. The new E177 (normally closed) and the E277 (normally open) are available in 0.375, 0.5, 0.75 and 1in BSP sizes. The valves feature the new streamlined look common to ACL's servo-assisted range that eliminates dust traps of earlier solenoid valve designs. | ||||||
| Yieh Phui Corp increases price on coated and galvanized steel coils (Jan 8) | ||||||
| Due to high raw material price and strong demand，Yieh Phui Corp increase price at NT 2000 /mt on Jan for its prepainted galvanized steel coils and galvanized steel coils. After the increase of pricing, HGI price will be around NT 17300/mt --NT 17700/mt.CGI will be around 20500~20800/mt. and prepainted galvanized steel coils will be around NT 28500~29500 /mt. | ||||||
| Stainless output up by 4.4% (Jan 7) | ||||||
| The December 2003 edition of Stainless Steel Review estimates global stainless steel output in 2003 at 20.2 million tonnes, up 4.4% on the year earlier figure. The review forecasts further expansion in 2004 to around 21 million tonnes. Western World production is expected to rise from 18.7 million tonnes in 2002 to 19.5 million tonnes this year and to over 20 million tonnes in the following 12 months. | ||||||
| Taiwan stock market shares rose to a two-month high (Jan 6) | ||||||
| Taiwan stock market shares rose to a two-month high, the TAIEX rose 83.86, or 1.4 percent, to 6125.42, the highest since Nov. 5. About four stocks gained for every one that declined. Taiex Futures for January delivery rose 1.5 percent to 6144. About 6.7 billion shares changed hands, 69 percent above the three-month daily average. Shares worth NT$135.6 billion traded, 59 percent above the three-month daily average. The acquisition may help China Development to increase its share of Taiwan's personal-banking business. China Steel Corp, Taiwan's largest steelmaker,said the company's profit will surge this year as strong demand in China boosts steel prices. | ||||||
| The hot rolled and cold rolled prices have increased in Taiwan (Jan 5) | ||||||
| In Taiwan,the hot rolled and cold rolled prices have increased around NT 200/mt--NT 500/mt. The new cold rolled price is around NT 16600/mt and the new hot rolled price is around NT 14200/mt. Electronic galvanized steel coils is around NT 20800~21300 /mt. The carbon steel price has increased dramatically due to high raw carbon raw material price and strong demand. Although the steel price keeps going up dramatically,some steel experts is afraid that this year April the steel market may start to drop in April. | ||||||
| Taiwanese mills expect Nickle price to go up to usd 20000/mt (Jan 2) | ||||||
| The Nickle price still keeps going up rapidly after Christmas holidays. Taiwanese mills think that the nickle price will go up to usd 20000/mt or even higher than usd 20000 /mt soon due to the shortage of nickle price and strong of nickle raw material. Due to rapid increase of high Nickle price, Taiwanese mills will not be able to get any lower importing steel material price although the importing steel duty becomes 0%. | ||||||
| Nickel might soars to $19000/ton if Falconbridge strikes. (Dec 31) | ||||||
| Nickel reached a three-month official at USD16,700 per ton on Dec. 30. Its the highest figure in 14 years. The upward trend could be contributed to the market “fear” of a predicted shortage of Nickel other than actual market demand. Also a looming strike at Falconbridge’s Sudbury nickel operation early next year fules the price speculation of nickel. It’s not really “supply over demand” issue, but “supply-related fear anticipating for shortage”, (now the feared strike in Falconbridge) that has spurred all this SHARP rising of Nickel to date. In the late 1980’s, Nickel for the LME three-month soared to $19,000/ton, with cash going up to $22,000/ton. It’s believed that there could be as much as 50,000 tonnes “stored in warehouse”, as Inco President Peter Jones argued that world nickel production would have to increase by about 55,000 type for the rest of the decade in order to meet demand. | ||||||
| Yieh Hsing raises wire rods prices (Dce 30) | ||||||
| Yieh Hsing, the major wire rods supplier in Taiwan, announced new sale price on the products last Friday. About usd250-300/Mt price raise for stainless steel wire rods and about usd30-40/Mt price raise for carbon steel wire rods. The 20,000Mt production allocation is expected to be fully booked within this week. Another stainless steel wire rods mill in Taiwan is expected to offer the similar price level to the market. Yieh Hsing will discuss with billet suppliers for new price early Jan. 2004. As the raw material price continue to go up, higher offering prices are expected. | ||||||
| YUSCO raise price, higher than predicted (Dec 29) | ||||||
| Yieh United Steel Corp. (YUSCO), decided to raise domestic sold price by NT$6,000~7,000/mt (US$180~205/mt) for Jan. delivery orders since nickel price keeps going up. As for foreign new orders, YUSCO has not decided but plans to raise around US$200~280/mt for Feb./Mar. shipment orders, which depends on different markets. The downstream manufacturers expressed that they would follow YUSCO's prices. and would raise sold price of finished products to reflect price hike of raw materials. Chien Shing Stainless Steel Co., One of Taiwan’s re-rolled stainless steel mill, said that they will have better profits in the first quarter next year. Because Chien Shing started buying hot rolled materials from overseas mills beginning from Q3 this year, the first lot, approx. 20,000 tons, is expected to arrive at Taiwan early of January. Chien Shing said that they would have sufficient hot rolled materials for re-rolled at lower price in Q1 & April next year. | ||||||
| Steel items removed from China's tariff protecting measurement (Dec 26) | ||||||
| China government announced that tariffs imposed on steel items such as Hot Rolled, Cold Rolled, Prepainted Galvanized, Stainless Steel Cold Rolled, and CRGNO are to be removed from today (Dec 26). These protecting measurement were addapted since Nov 20, 2002. Worldwide steel mills hope this new announcement will help the market. | ||||||
| Taiwan CR sheet to china reached her tariff quota (Dec 25) | ||||||
| China's General Administration of Customs delivered Announcement No.71 recently. According to customs statistics of China, imports of CR sheet from Taiwan (tariff number: 72091510，72091590，72091610，72091690，72091710，72091790，72091810，72091890，72092500，72092600，72092700，72092800，72099000) under definite safeguard measures has reached full of its tariff quota by Dec 18th, 2003, just on the heel of the same items imported from Russia covered its tariff quota by Dec 11th, 2003. As a result, any CR sheet required import from Taiwan is imposed by 20.6% of additional tariff rate from Dec 19th, 2003. | ||||||
| Results of AD Review on S.S. Pipe Fitting and Sheet & Strips (Dec 24) | ||||||
| The Department of Commerce has announced the final result of AD review on stainless steel butt-weld pipe fitting from Taiwan and Korea; stainless steel sheet and strips in coils from France and Italy. Taiwan: Ta-Chen: 1.27%. Korea: Sam Sung: 21.20%. France: Ugine & ALZ France: 2.93%. Italy: ThyssenKrupp Acciai Speciali Terni S.p.A.: 1.62%. | ||||||
| West-China Metal & Metallurgical Industry Expo Mar 18-21, 2004 (Dec 23) | ||||||
| West-China Metal & Metallurgical Industry Expo 2004, is to be held in Chongqing from 18th to 21th, March 2004. Organized by Chongqing Mechanical Engineering Organization, Chongqing Foundry Association, Chongqing Non-ferrous Association and etc. Chongqing is located in West China, big city aside of Yangtse River, an old metallurgical industry base for steel industry as well as Non-ferrous industry. Together with the advantage of transportation hub and economics center, Chongqing has great potential for metallurgical industry development. Chongqing Steel Group, Chongqing Special Steel, Xinan Aluminium Processing Mill are the representative enterprises in the aera. This exhibition has become the largest regular show with focus on metallurgical industry in China west. | ||||||
| CSC's 2004 profit (Dec 22) | ||||||
| China Steel Corp. (CSC), Taiwan's largest steelmaker, announced yesterday that its pre-tax profit for next year will fall to NT$42 billion (about USD1.235 billion), a 6.7-percent drop from this year's NT$45 billion (about USD1.324 billion). CSC attributed the decline to prices rises of imported raw materials triggered by the strong demand for steel worldwide, along with a surge in transportation costs. Meanwhile,the increase in costs has also led to a rise in sale prices. The firm expects to bring in NT$128.9 billion (about USD3.79 billion) in sales next year, a 0.2 percent increase from NT$128.6 billion (about USD3.78 billion) this year, Pre-tax earnings-per-share (EPS) are estimated to drop of NT$3.37 (USD0.991) next year from NT$3.72 (USD0.109) for this year, the company said. | ||||||
| Strong Stainless Steel pushs Nickel and Chrome (Dec 19) | ||||||
| Strong demand in stainless steel products had pushed up nickel price up to very high price now. The effect to chrome is the same. It is expected that the chrome production will grow at double-digit rates at the coming year. The strong demands for stainless steel products will keep going and therefore require more of stainless steel scrap. And the conditions will support the nickel price stay at high level. All of the above will require large quantity of chrome which is the main component of stainless steel making. Even thought the chrome production will grow, still shortage is expected. | ||||||
| CSC reduce 10% raw materail supply to wire mills (Dec 17) | ||||||
| China Steel Company announced to reduce 10% of supply on raw material to wire mills in first quarter during it's annual machine maintenance. Downstream makers (Screw & Nut Manufacturers) were worried about this and hoped the reduce percentage could be adjusted at 5%. "Many oversea customers kept observing the future market and haven't placed many orders in Sep and Oct. After a raise on raw material, oversea customers' stock is almost used up and is planning to purchase lately. There is going to be a strong demand in Dec," screw and nut manufacturers said. "We try many ways to solve the material shortage problem. It is difficult to import aboard due to higher price. Manufaturers could reserve some material." said Mr. Zhong-Yi Wu, president of Taiwan Industrial Fasteners Institute. In order to avoid material shortage problem, Mr. Wu reacted the difficulty to China steel seniors and ask to add 5% on materail supply. China Steel Co. stated that they understand the difficulty and will have a further discuss on this issue. | ||||||
| Universal Stainless announced price increase (Dec 16) | ||||||
| Universal Stainless & Alloy Products, Inc. today announced a 3% price increase effective with orders placed January 2, 2004 for all grades and products. The Company will continue to apply all surcharges that are currently in effect. Universal Stainless & Alloy Products, Inc., headquartered in Bridgeville, Pa., manufactures and markets a broad line of semi-finished and finished specialty steels, including stainless steel, tool steel and certain other alloyed steels. The Company's products are sold to original equipment manufacturers, service centers, forgers, rerollers and wire redrawers. | ||||||
| Yieh Corp Bimetal finned tube from Yieh (Dec 15) | ||||||
| Finned tubes has a characteristics of high-efficiency in heat transfering, also high-corrosion resistance, and long life cicle usually used in petro-chemical industries. Most finned tubes are made of bimetal, such as stainless steel and carbon stee, stainless and aluminum, Cu-Ni alloy, etc. To meet customer's versatile requirements, Yieh Corp always expands its supplying range to provide quality tubes, and this time, the finned tube supplier is with experience in exporting the same to Mistubishi Heavy Industries, Coemo Engineering, and the tubes are recognized by the users. | ||||||
| Three-month nickel's next resistance is $13,500/ton (Dec 11) | ||||||
| London Metal Exchange prices ended higher Tuesday with nickel ending the day on a technically positive note despite some profit taking. Benchmark three-month nickel ended above resistance of $13,200 a metric ton, which it breached early in the day, as continued speculative interest proved to be stronger than that of profit takers. Current nickel prices are at a 14-year high, with most players preferring to be long on the metal on concern about the labor situation at Falconbridge's Sudbury plant in Canada. Players have been spooked by the recent 13-week strike at Inco's Sudbury plant, which triggered sharp nickel price rallies, dealers said. Prices continue to rise even though talks on the most important monetary issues won't take place until late January. Three-month nickel's next resistance is $13,500/ton. | ||||||
| China imposes tariffs on hot rolled coil from Taiwan (Dec 10) | ||||||
| According to China cutom statistics, Taiwan HRC deliveries surpassed the safegurard quota on Dec 5. Hot rolled coil(HS：72081000，72082610，72082690，72082710，72082790，72083810，72083890，72083910，72083990，72084000，72085310，72085390，72085410，72085490，72089000) had reached to the second-stage quota and will put a 9.5 percent import tarriff. The tariffs were put into effect on December 6. Due to the effect of the restrict safeguard measures, HRC price is increasing sharply in the region of 3850~4000(RBM/TON). China Steel and Yieh Long stated that our export is more or less affected by the restriction and still look good on the HRC due to the big demand in China. Otherwise, other mills also expect to see the policy of goodwill from China after US cancelled the 201 sanctions. Once the safeguard restriction cancelled, it will benefit a lot by the Taiwan mills. | ||||||
| China's Baosteel will alliance with India's Tatas steel (Dec 9) | ||||||
| Shanghai Baosteel Engineering & Equipment, member of Baosteel group, met with Tata Steel brass in India to discuss a possible strategic alliance, which could lead to a joint venture. The discussions included iron ore supply to the Baosteel group by Tata Steel. Baosteel could be a source of equipment supply to Tata Steel as Tata is modernising. The iron ore supply arrangement is fitting Tata Steel's plans of focus markets in India, China , Korea and Japan with a production of 5 million tonnes. | ||||||
| Bush scraped 201 on imported steels (Dec 5) | ||||||
| U.S. President George W. Bush has scraped tariffs on imported steel, heading off the threat of a looming trade war with Europe and Asia. But to cushion the blow to the U.S. steel industry, the administration said it will closely monitor the industry to ensure that foreign steel is not dumped into the United States at below market rates. "I acted to give the steel industry time to adjust. I acted in time for us to say to the world that we will trade but we want to trade in a fair way,'' Bush said earlier Thursday before the announcement. Presidential advisers concluded that the threat of sanctions from the European Union and other trading partners left Bush with little choice but to lift the steel tariffs 16 months ahead of their planned expiration. They also say many U.S. manufacturers stand to benefit from lifting the tariffs because they have complained about higher steel costs. | ||||||
| China Steel Co's. pretaxed profit report (Dec 4) | ||||||
| China Steel Corp. (CSC), Taiwan's largest steel maker, reported its pretax profit in November was 100 million dollars on revenue of 316.19 million dollars on Tuesday. Chian Steel Corp.'s total pretaxed profit of the past eleven months from January to November of year 2002 was 1.2 billion dollars on revenue of 3.48 billion dollars. CSC has announced its continuing price raise for the last seven months. | ||||||
| Chinese growth in stainless production (Dec 3) | ||||||
| Rapidly growing demand for stainless steel in China has been providing mills in Asia and elsewhere with a market for a sizeable portion of their output, according to the Stainless Steel Review, November 2003. The country reports imports more than 2 million tonnes per year. However, that requirement is likely to fall sharply over the next few years. Stainless steelmaking in China is growing faster than anywhere else, and there will come a point at which it no longer needs imports in significant tonnages. Indeed, China could one day become a net exporter. The scale of the growth in Chinese stainless production will make China one of the world's largest producers, and alter the balance of supply not only in Asia but also globally. Among the large companies with expansion plans are Taiyuan Iron & Steel and Tangshan. Posco of Korea and Yusco of Taiwan also have plans to develop stainless melting plants in China. There are numerous other smaller stainless projects in China, such as those at Baotou and Daye Special Steel. | ||||||
| Shanghai Metal Expo 2003 coming next week (Nov 28) | ||||||
| Shanghai Metal Expo 2003 (11th-expo), organized by Baosteel & China Promotion, will be launched during Dec 2- 4, 2003 in Intex Shanghai. Topics for the Expo are widely in Metal products, equipments, technology, products and machines, including Cold Rolled Products, Hot Rolled Products, Plates, Pipes & Tubes, Stainless for automobile, construction, electrically and electronics, petroleum, shipbuilding, and E-commerce. Exhibitors for this time are 81 companies from 17 countries/ regions including Republic of Belarus, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, U.S.A. and etc. | ||||||
| Yieh Loong's new prices for HRC & CRC (Dec 20) | ||||||
| Yieh Loong, the leading manufacturer of hot rolled/cold rolled/hot dipped galvanized/checker coils in Taiwan, decided to rise price NT$500/mt (US$15/mt) for HR & NT$700/mt (USD20.5/mt) for CR, for Dec/Jan shipment orders. The company expressed that slab price is on the rising trend and they need to reflect increased costs of raw materials. Yieh Loong also expects the market demand would keep strong in the first quarter of next year. ( | ||||||
| Yieh Hsing raising it's SS wire rod prices (Nov 25) | ||||||
| Yieh Hsing Enterprise and Walsin Lihwa plan to raise at least NT$2,000/mt (US$59/mt) for stainless steel wire rod, effective for Dec delivery orders. The price rised immediately after Yieh United and Tang Eng's price increase on stainless steel flat products yesterday because of nickel's soaring price. However, the drawing mills do not appreciate the fact that the finish products of wire rod’s, such as screws and bolts, are in good price for the reason of covering the hight cost of their raw material. | ||||||
| YUSCO's new prices for Dec (Nov 24) | ||||||
| Yieh United Steel Corp. (YUSCO) announced to raise price of NT$2,000/mt (US$59/mt) in domestic market for Dec. delivery orders. Nickel price stays at about USD12,000/mt recently and has make all stainless steel mills face a huge pressure of increasing production cost. As the nickel price goes so high, the downstream pipe makers and coil centers said that the customers should be able to understand the situation and accept the price increase. For foreign market, YUSCO may hike price at about USD80~120/mt or a bit more for Jan. delivery new orders, subject to market divisions. | ||||||
| Yieh Corp. Widens supplying range for seamless tubes & pipes (Nov 21) | ||||||
| As a seamless tube & pipe supplier for the global markets, Yieh expanded its supplying range, and the following is the latest one: 1. Stainless steel seamless tube & pipe. 2. Carbon steel seamless tube & pipe. 3. Seamless Cu-Ni tube (mainly in application for heat exchanger & boiler, nuclear & power station). 4. Seamless aluminum tube (mainly in application for heat exchanger & boiler, air-conditioning, heating & cooling industies) 5. Seamless titanium tube (main grade: Gr2). And extra length for stainless steel seamless tube is also available, the max length can be 25 meters, and U-bend tube also registered in Yieh as a special tailoring in order to cater customers' needs. For more information, please write to Mr. Kaven at kaven@yieh.com for details. | ||||||
| Japan might decrease her steels export to China (Nov 20) | ||||||
| Taiwan steel industry is watching the case carefully that Japan's Nippon steel corp might reduce its export by 15% compared with the and quater to China in the forth quarter. Owing to a continuous increase in price of steel scrap, the cost of steel plate also increase correspondingly. Tokyo steel corp., the biggest electric furnance steel maker, decided to decrease its export to China in order to manage the cost issue. Other steel mills in Janpan, including Nippon steel corp, also want to apply this measure to draw up the price of steel products. | ||||||
| Chinese Steel industry still target domestic market (Nov 18) | ||||||
| Recently, Chinese Steel production will continue increasing and one Chinese industry association pointed out that the growth will mainly the domestic market." Some analysts even said, "The main target of China's steel industry is to increase shares of the locally made steel products on the domestic market, not to aggressively export." The steel output of the first ten months of this year reached 191.87 million tons, increasing 20.5% and the exports raised by 28% to 5.71 million tons. According to the China Steel and Iron Association, the total steel output will reach 215 million tons and exports will be around 7 million tons. The top official of the association said, "China will remain a big net importer of steel, especially the high-end products in coming years as a result of its strong steel demand." | ||||||
| CSC expects a good performance in Q1 2004 (nov 17) | ||||||
| Owing to increasing price of industrial raw materials, China Steel Corp. (CSC) said that they might keep raising price for some kinds of goods. However, with consideration of global market pricing, China steel might maintain the current price for most products. Beginning from Jan. 01 2004, Taiwan companies can import steel goods without import duty. CSC expressed that Mainland China’s demand would be kept strong in Q1 next year & bring the global steel price onto higher points. | ||||||
| China's steel tube production keeping rapid growth (Nov 14) | ||||||
| This year, China's steel tube & pipe products developed rapidly, reaching 1.5 million tons monthly from May to August despite a litle decrease in September, and from Jan. to September totaled 12,410,100 tons, a 17.98% increase compared with the same period of last year. Among the total output, The welded pipe is 7,314,800 tons, up 23.9% and seamless pipe is 5,095,300 tons, up 10.4% compared with the same period of last year . The exporting is 1,104,300 tons , up 59.0% compared with the same period of last year. | ||||||
| Global supply shortage desires fresh nickle resources (Nov 13) | ||||||
| Analyst indicated that huge new investments are in strong demand in exploring resources of nickel to lessen the tight supply shortage of it. The main elements affecting the market is from China’s strong demand on stainless steel and the situation will remain the same in the coming 8 to 10 years. “Tremendous demand is obviously needed.”, said the analyst. Some under constructing project is estimated to start running the year 2004 and 2006 including the first project of Inco and Voisey Bay. | ||||||
| Steel industry experts warn the worldwide steel shortage problem (Nov 12) | ||||||
| Recently, steel prices have beenincreasing sharply. Yet, World Steel Dynamics says that there is an 85% chance of a shortage in the first quarter of 2004. Due to the price raising, some steel companies's share jumped, like Ispat have risen 128% since Jan. 2003. According to the experts, the strong steel demand in China will account for 31% of total steel comsumption and the demand is still increasing huge, so a golbal shortage is likely in 2004. | ||||||
| U.S. steelmakers & EU's responses after WTO rebuffs US tarrifs (Nov 11) | ||||||
| After the world Trade Organization (WTO) ruled the U.S. steel import tariffs violate trade rules, the stock shares of US steelmakers, on 10 Nov, such as AK Steel Holding Co., Nucor Corp., Worthington Industries Inc., and U.S. Steel Corp. fell respectively from 2.17% to 10%. As a result, the Standard and Poor's Steel index closed down nearly 3 percent. The worse slap is that the European Union is threating to impose duties of 2.2 billion on U.S. goods which ranges from rice to t-shirt to cigarettes if President Bush wouldn't quickly withraw the controversial tarrifs. However, opposite voice also raised, Thomas Usher, chairman and chief executive of U.S. Steel, said in a statement "It is essential that the industry not be subjected to a renewed surge of imports because of an early termination or weakening of the safeguard measures," and that "the industry now needs the President to maintain the relief measures for the full three-year term". | ||||||
| Rising surcharges push stainless prices up (Nov 10) | ||||||
| Nickel and chrome surcharges make stainless steel prices up for the past few weeks. Prices for grade 304 stainless have increased about an average of 4.5 percent. The increases of stainless steel price maily due to the increase of raw material prices. The raw materials are nickel, chrome and molybdenum. Stainless bar prices are up for an average of 4 percent. The grade 304 is up 5.9 percent. The grade 303 is up 3.9 percent. The grade 316 is up 2.1 percent. Prices for coiled plate grades 304 and 304L is up 0.4 percent. ( | ||||||
| Taiwan stainless steel prices adjusted up in Dec (Nov 7) | ||||||
| London Metal Exchange witnessed the highest Nickel price exceeding USD12040/ton historically for the past ten years, this information has encouraged Yieh United Steel Co. and Tang Eng Steel Co., two major stainless steel mills in Taiwan, to further schedule their production prices for the 4th quarter of this year. Yieh United and Tan Eng were not able to reflect the high cost of nickel during Sep and Oct from their sales prices; it is definite that the coming Dec will face higher prices in the stainless steel market of Taiwan. | ||||||
| Bush is considering leaving tariffs on imported steel (Nov 6) | ||||||
| President Bush is considering leaving tariffs on imported steel in place but exempting far more imports from the duties -- seeking a middle ground between key constituents before the 2004 election. The steel tariffs pit steel users, which say the tariffs have hurt their profits, against steel producers, which say they offer protection against unfairly low-priced imports and should remain in place. Both are important constituents in battleground states in the run-up to next year's presidential election. ( | ||||||
| CSC reported a larger jump in Q3 profit (Nov 5) | ||||||
| China Steel Corp (CSC), Taiwan's larggest steelmaker, reported a big jump in third-quarter profit as traders in China bought more steel from overseas to take advantage of new import quotas. China Steel's third-quarter profit surged 88 percent to NT$9.44 billion (US$278 million). Rising steel consumption in China prompted importers to act more quickly than in previous years to take advantage of import quotas issued in May, benefiting international producers. CSC's sales rose 29 percent to NT$33.7 billion in the third quarter, raised its full-year profit forecast to NT$36.3 billion from NT$29.2 billion announced in December because of surging Asian steel demand. | ||||||
| China Steel Company announced profits up 20% (Nov 4) | ||||||
| China Steel Corp., Taiwan’s largest steel company, reported an EPS of NT$4.6 (US$0.14) of this year's operation, different from its previous goal of NT$3.85 (US$0.11). The profit is expected to be at a total of NT$44 billion (US$1.29 billion), 20% exceeding the previous forecast of NT$36.54 billion (US$1.07 billion) this year. China Steel expressed that the first 3 quarters’ earnings was NT$33.97 billion (US$1 billion), accounting 92% of 2003year goal. It is expected that demands from China & Asian would keep strong and would perform good sales in the 4th quarter. ( | ||||||
| Price of stainless steels keep raising (Nov 3) | ||||||
| Stainless steel price in global markets keep raising owing to a continious surge of nickle; besides, China's east-southern market and Tailand have a stable demand and increasing tendency for stainless steel. As a result,the manufacturer in Europe and Korea have all adjusted their export prices since Sep. this year. The global market will see a higher price for stainless steel in a few monthes. | ||||||
| Shortage of iron ore to be the bottle neck of China steel production (oct 31) | ||||||
| China Mining and Exploitation Committee showed that import of iron ore increase by 20% annually in the last 3 years. Domestic iron ore supply can only meet 65 to 70 millions tons pig iron production needs, including supply of scrap, can meet the output of 100 millions tons of steel. China steel output will achieve 200 millions tons in 2003, accordingly iron ore import will reach 140 to 150 millions tons, China will be the top 1 iron ore import country. It is expected that in 2005, China steel output will reach 220 millions tons, as a result, need to import 170 to 180 millions tons of iron ore, to take up 45% of the world trade volume of the ocean transport. Experts advised some ways to solve the bottle neck, such as to strengthen the mining exploration, gang up purchase, and deep water dock building. | ||||||
| Shortage of iron ore to be the bottle neck of China steel production (Oct 30) | ||||||
| China Mining and Exploitation Committee showed that import of iron ore increase by 20% annually in the last 3 years. Domestic iron ore supply can only meet 65 to 70 millions tons pig iron production needs, including supply of scrap, can meet the output of 100 millions tons of steel. China steel output will achieve 200 millions tons in 2003, accordingly iron ore import will reach 140 to 150 millions tons, China will be the top 1 iron ore import country. It is expected that in 2005, China steel output will reach 220 millions tons, as a result, need to import 170 to 180 millions tons of iron ore, to take up 45% of the world trade volume of the ocean transport. Experts advised some ways to solve the bottle neck, such as to strengthen the mining exploration, gang up purchase, and deep water dock building. | ||||||
| Nonferrous scrap processors avoid long-term contract with Chinese buyers (Oct 29) | ||||||
| Processors of nonferrous scrap is now more than careful on choosing customers and to avoid long-term contracting commitments when exporting to China due to the unstable market price. Natan, president of the nonferrous metals division of the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR), warned that prices will have a major fall once the new policy being introduced by the Chinese government next year. | ||||||
| Price description for PPGI in last week (Oct 28) | ||||||
| After a little slide, the price of PPGI became stable in Shanghai market. As a base price indication, the price of origin of Taiwan at 0.376*1200*c(CGCC/BLUE) is RMB 6740/MT, the price of origin of Korea at 0.376*1200*c(CGCC/gray) is RMB 6590/MT, the price of origin of Japan at 0.376*1200*c(CGCC/gray) is RMB 6450/MT, and the price of Baosteel at 0.5*1200*c(TDC51/BLUE) is RMB 6690/MT. In this week, most cargos will be from Taiwan and Japan. | ||||||
| YUSCO raises price US$80~120/mt for Nov./Dec. shipment (Oct 27) | ||||||
| Taiwan’s Yieh United Steel Corp. announced to raise NT$2000~3000/mt (US$60~90/mt) for November delivery in domestic market, and US$80~120/mt for December shipment for exports. The company said what they're doing is only to reflect the increased production costs of nickel. Last week nickel of LME was up to US$11,450/mt, the highest point in 13 years. Another Taiwanese stainless steel mill - Tan Eng also said that they will follow YUSCO to raise stainless steel price. | ||||||
| China monthly steel output hit new high in Sep (Oct 24) | ||||||
| China domestic steel monthly output hit new high to 20.404 million tons in September, according to the data from National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBSC). It increased 0.2 million tons by 24.3% from August, the first time output broke 20 million tons. It’s a new record in the world steel history for monthly output, compared with the August output respectively, it is 2.8 times of the US, 2.2 times of Japan, 3.9 of Russian. As the time being, there are 2598 steel projects under construction, grew 70.1% compared with the same period of last year. | ||||||
| LME establishing world 2nd steel coil exchange center (Oct 23) | ||||||
| The world wide famous London Metal Exchange (LME) is planning to establish a new product -- Hot Rolled Coil Exchange Center. LME is carrying out a research into the US market to see whether the new product would be accepted by the market. LME expects to promote the case in late 2004 if everything goes smoothly. This would be the second steel coil exchange center in the world, as the first one has been established by Yieh.com (Stainless Steel Coil Exchange Center) in the June of 2003. We will keep chasing further development of LME’s Hot Rolled CEC, stay tune, should you be interested in this information. | ||||||
| Global steel output will reach one billion tonnes in 2004 (Oct 22) | ||||||
| Global steel production at 952 million tonnes in 2003 is forecasted. This represents an increase of more than 50 million tonnes (6 percent) over the year earlier figure and more than 100 million tonnes above the value recorded in 2001. Further gains are expected in 2004, with prospects of the one billion tonne barrier being breached. Approximately 80 percent of this year's output rise is attributed to extra steelmaking in Asia, particularly China. We expect no improvements to be recorded in the EU, North America and Australasia. Significant gains are anticipated in all other regions. | ||||||
| Over supply of stainless steel products in China by 2007 (Oct 21) | ||||||
| Strong demands of stainless steel products have attracted many local and foreign investments of cold rolled mills. As those investment and capacity expansion are too aggressive and no suitable limitations and rules were set, it is expected that by the year of 2007, China will become very serious over supply of the stainless steel product base on those expansion to be put into production. China demands for stainless steel products is about 3.7 million tons this year that is about 28% higher than last yea |