Construction steel price today (April 20): Iron ore price increases with stable steel production

giá sắt thép xây dựng today

The price of steel delivered in October on the Shanghai Exchange decreased 11 yuan to 3,389 yuan / ton at 9:30 (Vietnam time).

Iron ore prices soared last week due to a nearly 1% increase on Friday (April 17) despite forecasting China’s economic growth in the third quarter of a record decline, ShareCafe reported.

Prices of iron ore 62% content increased 80 cents to 86.17 USD / ton from 85.6 USD / ton in the previous session.

China’s GDP dropped by 6.2% in the first quarter from 6% in the last 3 months of 2019.

The increase in iron ore price was due to the expected recovery of crude steel production in March and the first quarter.

China National Bureau of Statistics said its crude steel output fell 1.7% to 78.98 million tons of crude steel in March, down from 80.33 million tons in March 2019 and 74.8 million in February.

In the first quarter, China produced 234.45 million tons of crude steel, an increase of 1.2% over the same period last year, of which output in the first two months of the year increased by 3.1%.

Average daily production in March decreased to 2.55 million tons from 2.58 million tons in the first two months of the year, marking the lowest level since January 2019, according to Reuters.

However, data from the General Department of Customs showed that China’s iron ore imports in March were quite stable, only down 1.3% to 85.91 million tons. This was down 0.6% from 86.42 million tons last year and 176.8 million tons in the first two months.

In the first quarter of this year, ore imports increased by 1.3% to 262.7 million tons of iron ore compared to 259.3 million tons in the same period last year.

Rio Tinto on April 17 reported that iron ore exports in the first quarter grew steadily, at 72.9 million tons from 69.1 million tons last year.

Rio Tinto said exports were interrupted by tropical storm Damien in February, causing ore exports in the first quarter to plummet by 16% compared to the fourth quarter of 2019.

Exports from Vale SA, Brazil also decreased compared to the previous year although the third quarter of 2019 was affected by the dam failure disaster on January 25. The export of iron ore in the first quarter decreased by 17% to 70.3 million tons and only in March decreased by 23.3% to 22.3 million tons, the lowest level in 7 years.

Total production in the first 3 months decreased by 17% to 220.44 million tons due to the impact of heavy rains and the COVID-19 pandemic compared to 265.45 million tons in the same period last year.