Ferrous Market
– Steelbank Inventory: construction steel inventories 3.11 million tonnes, up 6.84% w-o-w. HRC 1.77 million tonnes, up 11.45% w-o-w.
– Northern Australia miner Frances Creek, acquired from Gold Valley Holdings six years ago, is currently investing 11.3 million dollars to upgrade facilities. First . NT Bulion planned to start the first trains with iron ore loads from this January.
– Mysteel surveyed at least 10 steel mills accepted the notice regarding to restrict electricity usage. However more than half of mills indicated they were not even reaching the restricted level, and thus not impacting their production. The electricity shortage in China was due to the cold weather and strong industry demand. However the shortage is expected to ease after weather warm up.
– China Shanxi started the 13th round of physical coke price increase by 100 yuan/tonne.
Macro
– China Shijiazhuang finished the Covid-case testing for all 10 million residents, and the governor is planning to start the second round of Covid-test.
– 11 provinces in China has created the highest electricity usage in Jan 7th historically.
– Financial Times: U.S. president Biden said would inject thousand billion U.S. dollars level to stimulus the economy.
– China National Bureau of Statistics: China December CPI up 0.2%, down 0.5% m-o-m. PPI down 0.4%, up 1.1% m-o-m.
SGX Iron Ore 62% Futures& Options Open Interest(Jan 8th)
– Futures 66,595,200 tonnes(increase 1,020,800 tonnes)
– Options 41,879,200 tonnes(increase 1,335,000 tonnes)
Verdict
– Short-term neutral