Demand expectation of steel pipe

Driven by a stable economy, the market is optimistic about the demand for round steel pipe in the first half of the year. However, the current actual demand for rebar is still in the seasonal consumption off-season, as of February 11, the apparent consumption of rebar weekly degree is only 868,300 tons, an increase of 494,000 tons on a weekly basis, it is expected that the apparent consumption of rebar marginal rebound in the next few weeks. But considering that in the second half of last year, real estate enterprises took the land down 17.1% compared to the previous year, and the new construction of real estate down 23.08%, although infrastructure projects will drive a certain amount of steel demand, but the steel consumption structure is the main part of the real estate, infrastructure increment is not enough to hedge the downward demand for real estate, so this year’s peak season with steel demand strength cannot expect too high, It is likely that the peak season is not prosperous pattern, accompanied by the resumption of the production of rectangular hollow section at this time, may expand the price of steel callback space.

As of February 11, the total output of rebar was 2,439,800 tons, down 21% year on year. The output of long process was 2,438,800 tons, and the output of short process was 0.1 tons. It is expected that the production of structural steel pipe will maintain a high probability of low operation after the holiday. On the one hand, the Winter Olympics increased the northern steel plant production limit task, the holiday period in the northern region limited production 50% landing, so the long process of 2-March output to maintain low; On the other hand, the electric steel mill overall loss, and scrap resources are tight, so the short process of resumption of production rhythm is also slow.

In addition, from the inventory data after the holiday, as of February 11, the total inventory of rebar in domestic key cities increased by 898,000 tons to 11,100,200 tons compared with last week, and the total inventory is much smaller than the same period in 2021, 2020 and 2019. From the perspective of rebar inventory structure, steel mill inventory is 3,253,100 tons, social inventory is 7,847,100 tons, steel pipe supplier inventory pressure is small, social inventory pressure is large, mainly due to the spot market before the Spring Festival is very active winter storage, so steel mill inventory into social inventory is smooth, under this inventory structure, if the future market demand is less than expected, the probability of price decline is high.