Orders of China Steel Corp. for the first quarter of 2023 are growing rapidly

China Steel Corp. said it is still hard at work on export orders for the first quarter of 2023. As the market trend improves, it is estimated that 150,000-200,000 tons more could be obtained than in the previous quarter.

In the fourth quarter of this year, this coincided with the energy crisis in Europe, interest rate hikes in the US, inflation, and the Chinese government's policy of restricting demand. Thus, manufacturing industry purchases are conservative with sluggish demand, which led to low prices in the fourth quarter.

Some production lines of China Steel Corp. were successively repaired in the third and fourth quarters. The target volume for the third quarter was reduced to 2.9 million tons, and for the fourth quarter - to 2.3 million tons.

However, hot rolled coil (HRC) and related carbon steel prices have risen one after the other recently, so a recovery is expected in the first quarter of next year.