Recently, LME nickel prices rose continuously and the price trend in China has also hiked, which strengthened market confidence. Yieh United Steel Corp. (Yusco)’s order volume in December has reached its target this week, and Tang Eng’s order volume has also completed 80%.

Taiwan's upstream steel mills indicated that the current transaction of the overall market has improved, and the base price of December has been lowered. At present, most of the downstream dealers are replenishing inventory.

In addition, in order to reduce production costs, upstream mills switched to importing Indonesia Tsingshan’s hot-rolled coil (HRC) and adopted greater discounts for customers with large purchases.

Some downstream players believed that the LME price has risen, coupled with the effect of replenishment, but actual demand is still weak, so there is limited opportunity for future price trends to rise.