Steel prices, tariffs, capacity moves and export policy — each item linked to its named industry source, so you can check it yourself.
What is happening in the market and at our plants — updated regularly.
China's trade remedy portal recorded 12 anti-dumping or countervailing investigations and rulings against Chinese steel products during October, with H-beams and seamless pipe among the goods named. If your package includes hot-rolled sections, ask us to confirm the HS code and any duty exposure before you lock a delivery date.
Source: MysteelThe US ISM manufacturing index rose one point to 55.5 in October and has now expanded for ten consecutive months. Euro area third-quarter GDP also beat expectations at +1.3% year on year. Both readings support continued demand for industrial buildings and their envelope materials.
Source: TonghuashunBlast furnace hot metal output slipped 4,300 tonnes to 2.3187 Mt a day last week, and only 11.26% of surveyed mills remain profitable. Thin margins plus the seasonal demand fade normally loosen mill-direct export offers — a workable window to revisit pricing before the first-quarter restocking cycle.
Source: Tonghuashun FuturesAll sub-indices moved down on 3 November: longs at 137.36, flats at 104.18, hot-rolled coil at 113.87. Rebar collected at Shanghai port was quoted at CNY 3,230 per tonne, down 20 on the day. Domestic softness is what keeps this month's export quotations competitive.
Source: MysteelThe Changjiang Nonferrous Metals Network reported on 2 November that domestic 50 percent grade zinc concentrate treatment charges have fallen to about minus 2,350 yuan per tonne of payable metal, an outright negative level in recorded history, with imported treatment charges also negative and smelters running at a loss for a tenth consecutive month, and that the International Lead and Zinc Study Group has revised its 2026 global zinc balance from a 271,000 tonne surplus to an 88,000 tonne deficit while cutting global mine output expectations by 2.6 percent. Spot zinc traded around 25,610 yuan per tonne on the day, and the 2027 benchmark treatment charge is expected to drop to zero to 40 US dollars a tonne from 85 dollars in 2026. The read for a buyer is that the cost floor under galvanized and color-coated sheet has just been welded into place: a falling zinc price is no longer a free option for suppliers, because smelters cannot survive negative treatment charges, and if the deficit holds, the zinc inside your roof sheet and purlin coil has a hard limit on how far its price can fall. The caveat is the demand side, because galvanizing operating rates were running near 90 percent while die-casting and zinc oxide fell back and galvanized sheet inventory is high, so the realistic outcome is a firm cost floor against soft end demand rather than a sharp price rise. The practical step for a quotation is to ask your coating supplier how much of the price is zinc pass-through and how it is adjusted, and to fix the validity period, since that adjustment term now matters more than the base steel price.
Source: Changjiang Nonferrous Metals NetworkAt the 140th Canton Fair the integrated housing and courtyard zone drew the heaviest traffic of phase two: one US buyer said on the spot he wanted 200 units, a Spanish buyer is sourcing pod units for a tourism camp and an Indian buyer reported around 20 orders already placed. Exhibitors quoted roughly 25 days from order to shipment for a standard modular unit and about 60 days to develop and deliver a new custom concept. Those are the delivery benchmarks buyers now carry into steel building enquiries, so quote lead times and site assembly steps explicitly rather than leaving them to be asked for.
Source: CCTV NewsAt its Q3 press conference on 30 October the China Steel Association reported 85.64 million tonnes of steel exports in the first nine months, down 2.6 percent year on year but with average export prices up 1.8 percent, while member-company inventory reached 16.85 million tonnes, the highest in four years and 8.7 percent above last year; by early October enterprise stock was up 8.4 percent on the month and 20 percent since the start of the year, and social inventory was 30.2 percent higher than at the start of the year. For a buyer this is a supply-availability signal rather than a price signal: mills have already cut output enough to hold discipline, so Chinese mills are unlikely to discount base prices aggressively, and the association expects total exports to fall moderately from the 2025 record as trade remedies multiply, which means the negotiation room is more likely to sit in freight, payment terms and consolidation rather than in the headline price of the steel itself.
Source: China Business JournalThe first phase of the Hangzhou east-suburb distribution centre has passed acceptance and is about to enter service: 240,000 square metres across 15 blocks including cold storage, dry warehouses, a central kitchen and a sorting centre, with 10.5 to 12 metre clear heights and ramped decks that let heavy trucks drive onto each level. The roof alone is 31,500 square metres of steel structure carried on variable-section H-beam girders, the heaviest single beam weighing 2.966 tonnes, and it is built in standing-seam rather than simple lapped sheeting: sealant is applied inside the seams before laying and a second transverse lap seal is added, the build-up runs from an outer waterproof layer through insulation layers, and steel wire rope is fixed under the roof to reinforce the whole assembly against wind. Photovoltaic panels are being laid across the warehouse roofs on a self-consumption and surplus-to-grid model. For an overseas buyer this is the technical baseline for logistics and cold-chain envelopes: the metal roof has to be detailed as a waterproof system rather than a simple sheet, the roof beams are sized for the dead load of photovoltaic and rooftop equipment, and fixings have to be reserved. When comparing roof suppliers, ask for the seam sealing detail, the insulation and waterproofing build-up, and confirmation that the roof structure was designed for the photovoltaic load rather than retrofitted for it.
Source: The PaperHonglu Steel Structure reported first-nine-month revenue of 18.05 billion yuan, up 13.4 percent, with output of 1.51 million tonnes up 21.2 percent, net profit of 163.4 yuan per tonne improving for a fifth consecutive quarter, annual capacity of 5.2 million tonnes on the way to more than 7 million tonnes, and 435 welding robots of its own manufacture already sold and exported to several countries. The read for a buyer is that Chinese fabrication is scaling up while its own margins improve, so expect Chinese structural steel pricing to hold rather than sag, and treat robot welding as a baseline requirement when comparing fabricators rather than a premium feature you should pay extra for.
Source: CFi.CN (China Finance Info)Mysteel's ten-month review of the cold-rolled, galvanized and color-coated market puts the story in three numbers: cold-rolled sheet exports reached 6.2872 million tonnes in the first nine months, up 15.07 percent on last year, helped by recovering demand in Korea, Vietnam and Egypt, while galvanized sheet exports fell 5.53 percent to 14.8525 million tonnes and color-coated sheet exports fell 5.09 percent to 6.8286 million tonnes. The review names Indonesia's anti-dumping investigation and Thailand's anti-circumvention ruling on Chinese galvanized product as the reason trade pressure is concentrating on precisely the grades that roof sheet and purlin substrate are made from. Capacity is the other half of it: cold-rolled utilization ran above 85 percent all year, 9.58 million tonnes of new cold and coated capacity came on stream in the first nine months, and color-coated social inventory has fallen to 223,000 tonnes, the only one of the three grades to genuinely destock. For a buyer this splits the sourcing decision in two, and the split matters: the base steel under your coated sheet sits in a market with a floor under it because inventory is genuinely low, while the duty and anti-dumping exposure sits almost entirely on the galvanized grades, so the useful question is no longer what a coated sheet costs but which base grade and which producer route it runs through.
Source: MysteelThe official manufacturing PMI fell to 49.3 in October from 50.1 in September, with production at 49.8 and new orders at 49.4, while large enterprises held at 50.2 and high-tech manufacturing stayed at 51.3. More useful for buyers: the raw material purchase-price sub-index dropped 4.0 points to 56.8 and the ex-factory price sub-index fell 2.3 points to 51.7. Both remain above 50, so prices are still rising, just more slowly, and a softer domestic order book gives Chinese mills less room to push export offers higher in the fourth quarter.
Source: XinhuaJapan published the cabinet order on 30 October and the definitive duty runs from 31 October 2026 to 30 October 2031, at 27.7 percent for Shanxi Taigang and un-sampled suppliers and 42.1 percent for POSCO Zhangjiagang and others, against 3.6 to 20.1 percent for Taiwanese material. It covers cold-rolled stainless with at least 10.5 percent chromium and more than 0.6 percent nickel, so it is stainless rather than the galvanised substrate behind roofing sheet. The relevance is direction: Korea has already ruled against Chinese galvanised cold-rolled coil, so confirm HS code and origin rules before quoting any Japan-bound order.
Source: SteelOrbisTaiwanese producer Chihou announced on 30 October that November domestic prices for galvanized and color-coated sheet will rise a further 1200 CNY per tonne after a 1000 CNY increase in October, taking the two-month rise to 2200 CNY, while December export quotes for both products go up 10 US dollars a tonne. The mill points to tightening supply rather than demand: worldsteel puts September global crude steel at 142 million tonnes, down 0.2 percent year on year, with China at 73.59 million tonnes and the first nine months some 30 million tonnes below last year, US hot-rolled coil has settled above 1455 US dollars a tonne with domestic mills running near 80 percent capacity utilisation on infrastructure and AI data centre demand, and European hot-rolled coil is up about 7 percent since July on the carbon border mechanism and tightened import quotas, while iron ore averaged 90.7 US dollars a tonne in October. For a buyer this is the clearest signal yet that export coated sheet prices are more likely to firm than to soften through December. Chinese mills Baowu and Angang held November list prices flat while Taiwan, Vietnam and Korea raised, so the price signal is clearest on the export side, which argues for locking quote validity and adjustment terms into your enquiry rather than assuming another decline is coming.
Source: SNN Global Steel NetworkBusiness Society's October review puts color-coated sheet at 6,500 CNY a tonne on 30 October against 6,600 on 1 October, a 1.5 percent fall for the month and still 0.2 percent above a year earlier, with galvanized sheet down from 4,162 to 4,096 CNY a tonne. The report notes that building envelope and steel structure plant orders came in scattered, with slow payment and spot buying rather than bulk restocking, while Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern prefab projects still drew steady orders, and it expects November to stay weak but stable with cost and mill output cuts providing the floor. That is the argument for fixing volume now rather than waiting: the downside is capped by mill margins, so an order placed at the bottom of this band is unlikely to see much more reduction, and the practical lever left to a buyer is delivery schedule rather than unit price.
Source: Business Society (Rawmex)September global crude steel output was 142 million tonnes, down 0.2 percent year on year, and 1.368 billion tonnes for the first nine months, down 0.7 percent; output outside China fell about 0.5 percent in September, the first negative month since April, and the gap came from Europe rather than weak demand, with EU September output down 5.0 percent, Germany down 13.0 percent after a blast furnace failure at an ArcelorMittal works and Italy shutting coke ovens and its only operating blast furnace at Taranto from 16 September with the hot end ordered idle by 28 October. The rules tightened at the same time: when the EU fourth-quarter import quota reset on 1 October, one category was exhausted the same day against six weeks of use in the third quarter, and Implementing Regulation 2026/1963 made melt-and-pour proof mandatory from the same date, so mill certificates must state the country of melting and casting together with the furnace number, with invoices and supplier declarations accepted only until 30 September 2027, while the European Parliament voted on 17 September to extend the carbon border mechanism to downstream products such as fasteners and wire. Two things follow for a buyer shipping into Europe: a shipment now needs a heat number and a melt-and-cast origin on the certificate, not just a grade certificate, and with European mills short of material European buyers are competing harder for traceable steel. Confirm in writing, before you order, that the mill certificate will carry the furnace number and the melting and casting country, so the paperwork does not become a problem on arrival.
Source: SMM (Shanghai Metals Market)Mysteel's global plate weekly for 23 to 30 October reports Middle East hot-rolled coil at 545 US dollars a tonne CFR for a third straight week, with Saudi Vision 2030 projects now in a concentrated steel structure installation phase buying in small, frequent batches rather than one large order, and Korean anti-dumping final determinations on Chinese galvanized cold-rolled product in force alongside tighter EU quotas and effectively blocked Turkish exports to Europe. Two things follow for a buyer: orders from Gulf industrial and infrastructure projects are real but fragmented, so suppliers able to ship partial loads and hold stock near the project will win share over those demanding one big delivery, and the trade barriers around galvanized and coated products keep reshaping where Chinese mills can sell, which is why every quotation should name the producing mill and the origin at the destination port explicitly.
Source: MysteelA reminder notice issued by the Luzhou Longmatan district government on 30 October sets out what the new insulation rules mean in practice for producers, traders and buyers, noting that four national standards including GB 46520-2025 on safety requirements for the fire performance of thermal insulation materials and products were issued in 2025 and come into force in stages between 1 July and 1 August 2026. The new codes classify insulation materials and set minimum fire performance grades, and they make product marking mandatory: the label must carry the product name, the fire performance grade and the producing unit, with strengthened quality traceability, plus batch-by-batch factory inspection before sale and incoming inspection of raw materials. The notice also spells out the legal exposure, citing Article 49 of the Product Quality Law for producing or selling product that does not meet mandatory standards, which brings confiscation of the goods and a fine of at least the value of the goods up to three times that value, and Article 54 for non-conforming product marking, which can be ordered corrected with a fine of up to 30 percent of the goods value, and in serious cases a sales ban or revocation of the business licence. For a buyer this is a documentation checklist, not a formality: if you buy sandwich panels, rock wool or insulation from China, ask for the fire performance grade to be stated on the product marking itself and confirm the certificate matches the batch being delivered, because the Chinese supplier now carries personal legal liability for both.
Source: Luzhou Longmatan District GovernmentFor the week to 30 October Mysteel put Chinese HRC export at 491 US dollars per tonne FOB, down 2 dollars, and commercial plate at 534 dollars, also down 2 dollars. Southeast Asian buyers bid 488 to 490 while sellers held 491, sample mills reported weekly export contracts down 15 to 20 percent, and forward order books shrank to 15 to 20 days, about three days shorter than the week before. A short order book is a negotiating signal: mills need tonnage, and mill-level lead times are compressed, which is the number to align a project schedule against.
Source: MysteelThailand's anti-dumping and countervailing subcommittee published a final anti-circumvention determination on 5 October 2026 on Chinese hot-dip galvanized cold-rolled coil, deciding to widen the scope of the existing case to hot-dip galvanized zinc-aluminium-magnesium alloy cold-rolled steel coil and to impose anti-dumping duties at CIF of 4.75 to 37.54 percent on ten named Chinese producers, among them 37.54 percent on Zhejiang Huada New Materials, Tianjin Xinyu Color Plate and their affiliates, with the measure stated to apply from 28 October 2025 for the same period as the existing duties and the announcement itself effective from the day after publication, covering 27 Thai HS codes running from 7210.49 through 7226.99. For a buyer this is the most direct trade risk on the exact substrate behind coated roofing and purlin material, because zinc-aluminium-magnesium coating is the premium corrosion-resistant option for coastal, humid and mildly aggressive sites, and in Thailand it now sits inside the duty net rather than outside it. Two things follow. First, ask which producer made the coated sheet before you order, because the duty rate depends entirely on whether that producer is on the list. Second, if the destination is Thailand, have the mill, the coating route and the country of origin stated on the invoice, so that classification does not become a problem at clearance rather than at the drawing board.
Source: Fujian Provincial Department of Commerce (China Trade Remedy Information Network)Nucor reported third quarter earnings of 5.80 US dollars a share on revenue of about 11.25 billion dollars, with the steel products segment posting pretax profit of 465 million dollars on shipments up 6 percent, realised prices up 7 percent and backlog up roughly 25 percent. The company raised the long-term annual EBITDA target for its towers and structures business from 150 million to about 200 million dollars, and chief executive Leon Topalian said data centres now represent around 15 percent of total orders. On capacity, the West Virginia sheet mill starts ramping in early 2027 toward roughly one million tonnes a year of automotive steel including 100,000 tonnes of exposed-surface material, and the Berkeley automotive galvanizing line is already running toward full capacity by the end of 2027, adding 500,000 tonnes a year. Two things follow for a buyer. First, data centre construction has become a first-order driver of structural steel demand, which supports the project pipeline for anyone supplying frames, purlins and metal envelope in the Gulf, India and Southeast Asia where the same build-out is running. Second, North American galvanizing and sheet capacity is being added through 2027, so US and North American buyers should expect domestic coated sheet availability to improve and should price Chinese and domestic origins side by side now rather than assume either stays where it is.
Source: SMM (Shanghai Metals Market)Thirteen questions buyers ask us most — cost, profiles, steel grades, loads, packing and export. Kept separate from the news feed so neither one gets buried.
A practical look at what really drives the specification and the price.
Read the guideA practical look at what really drives the specification and the price.
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