The price of raw materials such as iron ore and iron and steel continues to rise.

The steel raw material market, represented by iron ore, is continuing to maintain strong demand.

According to statistics from the spot trading platform “Nishimoto Shinkansen”, iron concentrate prices in Hebei continued to rise last week, at a rate of RMB 20/t. As the production of local mines in Hebei Province was affected by the security inspections, the mines in the main mining areas in the Qianxi region have not yet resumed production, and the current iron concentrate resources are still tight. However, with the high prices, individual steel mills have stopped purchasing domestic fine iron powder in consideration of production costs.

The price of imported ore also rose slightly. The data shows that the current price of 63.5% Indian fines is currently quoted at $188/ton in the external market, up $1/ton from the previous weekend. The market has fewer low-grade resources, and high-grade resources have a relatively strong price. The transaction status is more general. Under the influence of high raw material costs and sluggish steel sales, the willingness of the steel mills to purchase is still not strong. With the use of supplements, low inventory is maintained.

Looking back at August, although the trend of the steel market was relatively flat, the raw material market maintained a prosperous state as steel production remained at a relatively high level. In August, domestic iron ore, coke, and coal prices all showed a slight upward trend, which was significantly stronger than the steel market.

It is worth noting that, in order to reduce production costs, many domestic steel mills in the earlier period generally adopted domestically-produced high-grade ore and imported low-grade ore blending schemes. However, as the price of these two kinds of mines has risen rapidly, their price advantage is being Step by step, the late steel mills may be redirected to more than 60% of imported ore grades. Judging from the situation in September, iron ore prices do not have the conditions to fall under the circumstances that domestic steel production remains high and the north steel mills will usher in winter storage. At the same time, by India may further limit the impact of iron ore exports, the continued devaluation of the US dollar, will form a strong support for the import ore market. It is expected that the iron ore price in the domestic market will show a steady increase in September.