Last week, steel social inventory continued to maintain a downward trend, has achieved "five consecutive declines", but the decline is slowing. June 11, the national 29 key cities steel social inventory of 12.3214 million tons, less than last week 56,100 tons, down 0.46%, 0.91 percentage points lower than the previous week.

Affected by the epidemic last year, the social inventory of steel continued to rise, reaching a record high of 23.127 million tons on March 13, 2020, and then the high inventory lasted throughout the whole year. This year, under the influence of a high base, social inventory has been running at a high level. Although this year's peak stocks are down 3.38 million tons from last year and 13 weeks after their peak, they are still at their highest level in nearly five years except last year. With the recent high temperature and rainy weather, outdoor construction projects and transportation have been significantly affected, steel demand has gradually arrived in the off-season, late steel social inventory or will be reduced to rise.

But it is worth noting that the recent construction steel inventory is continuing to decline, according to Lange cloud business platform monitoring data, the national key city building materials social inventory of 7,558,700 tons, less than last week 50,700 tons, down 0.67%, 2.38 percentage points lower than last week's decline.

The reason is related to the price of steel. Early due to the steel price rising too fast, steel enterprises under the pressure of cost, reduce the purchase volume; Later steel prices after adjustment to return to the fundamentals so that high steel prices to suppress the steel demand gradually released. Superimposed before the Dragon Boat Festival stocking situation, the recent trading volume in some areas did not fall but rose. According to the survey of Lange Iron and Steel network, the Dragon Boat Festival before three consecutive days, Beijing 10 building materials of large households total shipments of more than 10,000 tons/day.

In terms of output, under the influence of policies such as "carbon peak", "carbon neutrality" and environmental protection supervision, this year's steel production limits have been strengthened; In particular, Tangshan is the most obvious, from the beginning of the year to now, production restrictions continue to strengthen, and there is no sign of relaxation. Recently, Qinhuangdao, Shanxi, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and other places to carry out environmental protection production limit action, for the later steel production will have a certain inhibitory effect.

At the same time, after the steel price correction, steel profits declined significantly, maintenance production increased. The blast furnace operation rate is the lowest in five years. According to the monitoring data of the Lange Steel Cloud business platform, on June 11, 2021, the blast furnace operating rate of major steel mills in China was 82%, down 5.4 percentage points compared with the same period last year. 1 percentage point lower than the same period in 2019; 5.9 percentage points lower than the same period in 2018; That was down 7.8 percentage points from the same period in 2017.

Ge Xin, deputy director of Lange Iron and Steel Research Center, said that some northern regions of the short-term environmental protection limit production and Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei to carry out joint law enforcement of ecological environment opened, again gave the futures and spot market to pull up the power, while iron ore prices rose significantly also drove the enthusiasm of the market.

According to Lange cloud business monitoring platform data, on June 15, domestic key cities 25mm three rebars average price of 5128 yuan/ton, compared with the lowest point in May 4952 yuan/ton rose 176 yuan/ton, or 3.55%. Rebar futures also appeared a significant rebound, but the daily price volatility was far more than spot. As of June 15, the last rebar futures main contract shock fell, closed at 5168 yuan/ton, down 77 yuan/ton, down 1.47%; From the lowest point in May, the price increased by 501 yuan/ton, or 10.73%.

Recently, iron ore prices also appeared a significant recovery. According to Lange Cloud business platform monitoring data, on June 15, the iron ore price in Rizhao Port (600017, bar) was 1490 yuan/ton, up 180 yuan/ton from the lowest point in May, up 13.74%. In addition, scrap steel and coke prices have also appeared in the recent rise, forming strong support for steel prices.

Ge Xin said that in the short term, the domestic steel market will maintain the trend of volatility adjustment, but some varieties may appear a small rebound.