According to the Ukrainian association of tube producers UkrTruboProm, in the current year Ukraine’s production of steel pipes may go up by 15-20 percent compared to 2010, to 2.2-2.3 million mt per year. However, the expected level of steel pipe production in 2011 is still lower than pre-crisis level of 2008, when Ukrainian companies produced 2.522 million mt of pipes.

Brazilian steel mills are wary of China taking market share for finished steel products and the import of goods with a high concentration of Chinese steel, a national producer group said Tuesday.

Amid global steelmaking overcapacity, the weakness of China’s yuan and the strength of Brazil’s real is an attractive combination helping steel imports surge, particularly from China, Marco Polo de Mello Lopes, chief executive of the Brazil Steel Institute, said at the Coaltrans Brazil conference in Rio de Janeiro.

“There were 4.2 million mt in indirect imports of steel in 2010 of materials of a high steel content such as autoparts and together with finished steels this totals around 10 million mt,” Mello Lopes said. “This is the capacity of over two steel mills, or even the largest group in Brazil, so we can see how dramatic this situation was in 2010.” (more…)

China, the largest steel maker in the world, saw its output of crude steel rise 7.8% year on year to a monthly record of 60.25 million metric tons in May, according to the latest statistics released by the National Bureau of Statistics.

The crude steel output was 2.07% more than the 59.03 million metric tons in April.

The NBS said earlier that the country’s crude steel output grew 8.3% year on year to 229.71 million metric tons in the first four months.

Last month, China’s output of steel products increased 10.6% year on year to 76.37 million metric tons. The figure was higher than the 73.15 million metric tons in April.

Baoshan Iron and Steel<600019>, a leading steel producer in China also known as Baosteel, said earlier this month that it would cut its main product prices for July bookings because of weak demand, reflecting the second price reduction since September 2010.

The 77 large- and medium-sized steel enterprises in China earned a combined net profit of RMB 32.98 billion in the first four months of this year, 2.12% less than in the same period of last year, said Luo Bingsheng, a senior official with the China Iron and Steel Association, China Knowledge reported earlier.

Inventory cost of imported raw materials like nickel, scrap and molybdenum weighs heavily on producers.

The demand for stainless steel has got much to do with the state of development of an economy and also how much emphasis it gives to infrastructure creation. It then says much of the scene here that India was ranked the world’s fourth-largest producer of this metal behind China, EU and Japan and its third-largest user after China and EU in 2010. Recording a growth of 12 per cent in crude stainless steel production to 2.9 million tonnes (mt), which at finished product point became 2.6 mt, the Indian demand at 2.4 mt, too, registered double digit rise. (more…)

A new trading mode, named “Bidding”, is brought into iron ore market in recent years. Initially, Indian miners invite the public bidding for their iron ore which is still on the sea. The offer is calculated on the basis of spot price and ocean freight. Then the buyers give their offers. Finally, the participant, who gives the highest offer, is the winner.

And then Australian miners Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton join the wave in the wake of the disappearance of decade-existed annual pricing system. They even classify their clients. And only those with high reputation can be the bidders.

The new mode became more and more popular in the latter half of 2010. Even Brazilian miners were attracted. It is reported that the winners in the bidding are mainly big-scaled traders, instead of iron ore users steel mills. The phenomenon is contained big risk, from the viewpoint of steel mills or insiders, citing that winners will resell the iron ore to end users with a higher deal; the move will finally push up spot market.

For example, the miner will tag its product at US$ 192 per tonne, versus the current spot market of US$ 190 per tonne. One buyer, who anticipates a boomy market in the future, may finalize the vessel of iron ore at the deal of US$ 192 per tonne. And then, he may successfully make a fortune of 2 dollars a tonne by selling the vessel to other steel mills. Spot market, as a result, is boosted by the overseas miners.

The speculative behavior may develop stronger and stronger, and should draw great attention from Chinese steel team, government as well to work out the countermeasures to fight against this a vicious circle.