Ferrous Market
– Brazil miner CSN Q4 iron ore production 9.47 million tonnes, down 18% from Q3, down 11.4% y-o-y. Q4 iron ore sales 8.64 million tonnes, down 6% from Q3, down 16.4% y-o-y.
– MySteel estimate year 2021 iron ore delivery increase 96.3 million tonnes, major contributed by Brazil, India, and U.S.. Q1 supply to China look stable, however over-supply potentially emerge from Q2 to rest of the year as pandemic controlled or decreased globally.
– Tangshan Port News: Caofeidian Port stopped evacuation from Feb 25th – Mar 1st. Jingtang Port decrease evacuation trucks by 50%.
– MySteel Australia and Brazil iron ore total delivery(Feb 15 – 21st) at 22.58 million tonnes, down 3.44 million tonnes w-o-w. Australia iron ore delivery 16.94 million tonnes, down 2.65 million tonnes w-o-w. Australia delivery to China 14.54 million tonnes, down 356,000 tonnes w-o-w. Brazil iron ore delivery 5.64 million tonnes, down 795,000 tonnes w-o-w.
– HBIS decrease coke price by 100 yuan/tonne. Shanxi and Shandong also decreased 100 yuan/tonne on coke price last week.
– Ganggu Construction Steel Inventory: production 5.02 million tonnes, up 87,800 tonnes w-o-w. Mills inventory 9.77 million tonnes, up 744,600 tonnes w-o-w. Circulation inventory 15.66 million tonnes, up 1.74 million tonnes w-o-w.
Macro
– Powell headlines sound dovish, indicating the stimulus potentially extended as the inflation rate and unemployment rate yet reach the target. However all messages were in line with previous strategies following January. LME copper recovered loss and pushed over night. Nasdaq also rebound and recover most of losses from a low open.
– Hongkong raise stamp duty on stock market to 0.13%, Hang Seng Index down 3.2% in early afternoon.
SGX Iron Ore 62% Futures& Options Open Interest(Feb 23rd)
– Futures 85,556,900 tonnes(increase 1,603,500 tonnes)
– Options 53,307,200 tonnes(increase 7,500 tonnes)
Verdict
– Short-term neutral.
