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Latest Stainless Steel News 28/04/2010
Wed 28 Apr 2010
Taiwan's stainless steel price to go up further in May
Yieh United Steel Corp. (Yusco) will issue May prices on 29th April and it is estimated that Yusco will lift stainless steel price further. Average price of nickel on the LME has increased by US$2,500/ton, market participants expected that the mills would lift the price by US$150-200/MT.
In addition, other Asian stainless steel mills in South Korea and China are all increasing the price to reflect higher raw material cost as much as possible.
Raw materials prices continue to soar
Raw materials prices continued to soar in the first quarter this year compared to last year. The price of nickel was on average 91% higher and ferro-chrome 28% (from Q1 2009 to Q1 2010).
Nickel price rise came from "improved demand for stainless steel and continuing constraints on production, as a result of strikes and production-related problems”. The average nickel price in Q1 2010 was $19,959/tonne and has increased to around $27,000/t in recent weeks.
The quarterly FeCr price has also risen to $1.36/pound, from $1.01/lb in the previous quarter.
Stainless global output increase 30 milion tonnes
With key economic indicators continuing to point upwards and improving stainless steel order in many markets, the mood of this sector is quite positive at the moment, but it may be short lived asuncertainty and scepticism prevails for the second half of this year.
Global crude stainless output is that 2010 will see a sharp turnaround in output in mature markets like North America, Europe and Japan after the slump in 2009. This, combined with further growth in China and the rest of Asia, will result in full year production of 30.6m tonnes, a near 18% increase compared to production in 2009.
China's stainless steel production this year to reach 10.7million tonnes, up almost 10% on 2009. Also, Nafta's 2010 crude production will be higher than annual output both last year and in 2008, but Europe and Japan won't manage to regain 2008 levels of production.
