Around the Spring Festival, the stainless steel raw material market rotates to increase prices, and with the recovery of the post-holiday market, the rise of the raw material market slowed down in March and even declined.

On Monday, TISCO, Tsingshan Group and Baosteel Desheng announced their bidding prices for high-carbon ferrochromium in March. The overall price is based on a month-on-month increase of 700 yuan/50 basis tons.

The purchasing price of TISCO is RMB 8,700/50 basis ton, the purchasing price of Qingshan Group is RMB 8,896/50 basis ton, and the purchasing price of Baosteel Desheng is RMB 8,900/50 basis ton, all including tax to the factory price.

Recently, the mainstream ex-factory price of high chromium is 8800-9000 yuan/50 basis tons, and the bidding purchase price of mainstream steel mills is significantly lower than the current market quotation, which has caused the recent increase in high chromium prices to slow down.

From the perspective of the ferronickel raw material market, a similar situation has occurred recently. In late February after the Spring Festival, the price of high-nickel iron steel soared to 1,210 yuan per nickel (including tax to the factory), which drove the market price increase.

The domestic mainstream high-nickel iron ex-factory price rose from 1140 yuan/nickel to around 1200 yuan/nickel, up 50-60 yuan/nickel in just two weeks.

With the release of post-holiday demand and the replenishment of raw material inventories in steel mills, transactions in the high-nickel iron market have slowed. Coupled with the rise and fall of nickel futures prices, the price of high-nickel iron has stalled and even declined recently.

Recently, the price of ferromolybdenum has also fallen. According to the industry, the total volume of ferromolybdenum steel in February was 5,760 tons, which will be lower than the volume of steel from December to January before the holiday.

According to the industry, medium and large ferromolybdenum producers basically maintained their production status during the Spring Festival, but due to the Spring Festival holiday, there were fewer ferromolybdenum tenders in February, and ferromolybdenum traders also accumulated a certain amount of low-priced inventory, and they were not in a hurry to replenish their stocks after the holiday. , Ferromolybdenum price support is weak, and the price recently fell 1,000 yuan/60 basis tons to 116,000 yuan/60 basis tons.

On the whole, under the premise that the rise of the raw material market slows down, and even the price pulls back, it is bound to weaken the recent upward momentum of stainless steel prices.

Some industry believes that high-chromium raw materials still have potential for growth, because the budgeted electricity consumption of high-energy-consuming enterprises in the Ulan Qab area, where high-chromium enterprises are concentrated, dropped by 800 million kWh in March. Currently, production enterprises have further reduced this.

High chromium production, if the supply of high chromium market is not in place for a while, the price of high chromium will remain firm.