China Steel Corp (中鋼), the nation’s largest steelmaker, yesterday said it would be keeping steel prices for delivery next month steady as customers have accumulated inventory after global supply chain blockage suspended production.
The Kaohsiung-based company urged Taiwanese steel-using companies to take advantage of the lower steel prices to prepare for Environmental Social Governance (ESG) challenges it sees coming down the line for related industries.
“We hope that our downstream buyers can take full advantage of this period of price stability in steel to accelerate their ESG transition efforts and be prepared for the worldwide trend in decarbonization,” China Steel said in a statement.
The company also said it plans to reduce carbon emissions from 2018 levels by 7 percent by 2025, and to be completely carbon neutral by 2050.
“We will be following the lead of Tata Steel Europe and Germany’s Thyssenkrupp Steel in adding a carbon surcharge,” the company said.
China Steel said that several factors are indicating a rebound in Asian steel prices in the fourth quarter, including a rise in demand due to a global economic recovery as well as a surge in raw material costs.
“The strict ‘dual-control’ electricity use policy mandated that many steelmakers in China can only run during off-peak hours from November 15 to March 15, 2022,” the company said.
“We predict that crude steel production will decrease by at least 30 percent,” it added.
In addition to predicting tighter supplies due to electricity shortages, the company said that the price of coking coal has broken US$400 per tonne, while iron ore, which hit bottom last month, has risen by nearly 40 percent.
“Given the tightness in supply of various steel smelting materials and the Baltic Dry Index has reached a 13-year high, we expect Asian steel prices to rebound,” China Steel said.
The Baltic Dry Index is a bellwether index for global dry bulk shipping, which has surged alongside demand for coal imports amid a global energy crunch.
Global and domestic demand for steel is expected to be strong, said the state-run company, which has a committee decide the price of steel for domestic delivery, monthly for some products and quarterly for others.
The World Steel Association predicted that “the demand for global steel will grow by 4.5 percent year-on-year to 1.86 billion tonnes, and that a further 2.2 percent growth year-on-year is expected in 2022,” China Steel said, adding that it expects a bullish steel market until next year.
Sweeping policy changes under US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr are having a chilling effect on vaccine makers as anti-vaccine rhetoric has turned into concrete changes in inoculation schedules and recommendations, investors and executives said. The administration of US President Donald Trump has in the past year upended vaccine recommendations, with the country last month ending its longstanding guidance that all children receive inoculations against flu, hepatitis A and other diseases. The unprecedented changes have led to diminished vaccine usage, hurt the investment case for some biotechs, and created a drag that would likely dent revenues and
Macronix International Co (旺宏), the world’s biggest NOR flash memory supplier, yesterday said it would spend NT$22 billion (US$699.1 million) on capacity expansion this year to increase its production of mid-to-low-density memory chips as the world’s major memorychip suppliers are phasing out the market. The company said its planned capital expenditures are about 11 times higher than the NT$1.8 billion it spent on new facilities and equipment last year. A majority of this year’s outlay would be allocated to step up capacity of multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory chips, which are used in embedded multimedia cards (eMMC), a managed
CULPRITS: Factors that affected the slip included falling global crude oil prices, wait-and-see consumer attitudes due to US tariffs and a different Lunar New Year holiday schedule Taiwan’s retail sales ended a nine-year growth streak last year, slipping 0.2 percent from a year earlier as uncertainty over US tariff policies affected demand for durable goods, data released on Friday by the Ministry of Economic Affairs showed. Last year’s retail sales totaled NT$4.84 trillion (US$153.27 billion), down about NT$9.5 billion, or 0.2 percent, from 2024. Despite the decline, the figure was still the second-highest annual sales total on record. Ministry statistics department deputy head Chen Yu-fang (陳玉芳) said sales of cars, motorcycles and related products, which accounted for 17.4 percent of total retail rales last year, fell NT$68.1 billion, or
In the wake of strong global demand for AI applications, Taiwan’s export-oriented economy accelerated with the composite index of economic indicators flashing the first “red” light in December for one year, indicating the economy is in booming mode, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Moreover, the index of leading indicators, which gauges the potential state of the economy over the next six months, also moved higher in December amid growing optimism over the outlook, the NDC said. In December, the index of economic indicators rose one point from a month earlier to 38, at the lower end of the “red” light.
RSS