It is reported that price for low grade CR silicon steel appeared slight increment lately in Shanghai despite the fluctuations, and some specs even went out of stock.

Insiders analyzed the causes of the above-mentioned unusual changes and listed them as follows:

1. Mills provided fewer resources to the market in the first four months, when outputs of CR silicon steel from the five biggest mills amounted at 1.04 million tonnes down by 14.1%YoY or 0.17 million tonnes lower than the same period of last year.

2. Prices for low-grade CR silicon steel continued to fall slightly before, causing traders asking for fewer orders, and then resulting in thin stocks in the market. Thus, those products were found out of stocks, when mill’s deliveries were postponed.

3. Demands for high-voltage motors surged up, pushed up silicon steel prices.

Since the beginning of this year, CR silicon steel prices slumped largely, even lower than HR silicon steel, which geared up the shift from HR products to CR, increasing demands for CR silicon steel. As to import and export, China absorbed non-oriented CR silicon steel sheet of 131,063.78 tonnes from abroad in the first four months, a sharp jump from 262,059.39 tonnes in last same period, while shipped out the products of 32,497.94 tonnes, 10,032.84 tonnes fewer than last same period. At present, imported non-oriented silicon steel are rare in the market.

Industrial Insiders noted, China’s medium- and low-grade CR silicon steel price will run into upward channel, however unevenly, due to lack of supplies. But, they still warned, orders in electric machine industry have shrunk for nearly half of a year; the off-season for house-hold appliance industry is about to come; some of oversea resources are cheaper than domestic ones.

(Sourced from MySteel.net)
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