In July 2017, China’s stainless steel market has successfully enlarged its profit scale, and steel mills’profit surged to RMB1,000/ton. Therefore, China’s steelmakers received more orders of July and August, with a monthly output expectation of 2 million tons. After the continuous dropping for last three months, China’s stainless steel prices finally started climbing in June.

However, since LME nickel price increased dramatically last Friday, and steel mills suspended to sell out one after another, China’s stainless steel prices started a new wave of price increase. TISCO, for example, increased RMB600/ton for their 304 CR products, closing at RMB14,900/ton on July 15th. 

Besides, other related steel mills increased from RMB200/ton to RMB500/ton respectively. On July 14th, some big steel distributors were still underselling products, and traders were reluctant to buy, but the crazy LME nickel price pushed up China’s stainless steel price immediately.

Now, most private-owned steel mills have achieved their maximum capacity for August, and the future orders are arranged at late August or early September.