Shanghai steel futures leap as peak season output curbs raise supply worries

BEIJING: Steel futures in China jumped on Friday, with hot rolled coils gaining nearly 5% along with gains in rebar and stainless steel, as continuing production curbs into the traditional peak demand season stoked supply concerns.

Apparent demand for five main steel products, including construction and manufacturing used materials, rose for the third straight week to 10.41 million tonnes as of Thursday, data from Mysteel consultancy showed.

Capacity utilisation rates of blast furnaces at 162 mills across China, however, fell to 75.06% this week from 75.53% the week earlier, according to Mysteel.

The most actively traded hot rolled coils on the Shanghai Futures Exchange, for January delivery, rose as much as 4.9% to 5,820 yuan ($900.98) a tonne.

Steel rebar on the Shanghai bourse increased 2.8% to 5,432 yuan a tonne as of 0330 GMT, after hitting 3.1% in early session.

The October contract for stainless steel futures jumped 4.4% to 5,794 yuan per tonne.

Prices for steelmaking ingredients were traded slightly higher.

Benchmark iron ore futures on the Dalian Commodity Exchange inched up 0.5% to 779 yuan a tonne.

Spot prices of iron ore with 62% iron content for delivery to China was unchanged at $147.5 per tonne on Thursday.

Dalian coking coal rose 0.4% to 2,607 yuan a tonne and coke futures inched 0.3% higher to 3,318 yuan per tonne.

The Dalian bourse said it would raise speculative trading margin requirements for coking coal and coke to 15% from the settlement on Sept. 6, after both contracts hit daily trading limit on Thursday.