Saturday, 14 Aug 2010
Daily Economic News reported that quite a few big steelmakers in China are learned to have started a new round of price advances.

Shagang lifted its price for the middle ten days of August by CNY 200 per tonne for high speed wire rod, rebar and coiled rebar. At the same time, Magang pulled up the prices of construction steel, sheet/plate and sections by CNY 150 per tonne to CNY 650 per tonne while Shandong Steel Group also added CNY 150 per tonne to its rebar price for middle August.

The newspaper said despite that the industry authority has called the roll of to-be-eliminated steel mills and some of them still dare act against the policy and resume operation lured by the price rise.

Some analysts said the rising steel price is enlarging their profit margin, and flexible steel mills bearing low cost could get back to production.

According to a Tangshan-based trading source, if there is a market, the small and medium size steelmakers are not willing to be shut down they may find ways, like lodging with the big mills.

In past years, the small steelworks often came back to life once the price was up; though their products boast no good quality, the price is cheap as per a smelting worker in Linyi.