Coke Price Hike Takes Effect as Crude Steel Output Falls 4% MoM; Steel Prices Range-Bound Pending Peak-Season Verification
Sept. 8, 2026 - Effective from midnight today, coke producers in Shanxi, Shandong and other regions implemented their fifth round of price increases, raising wet-quenched coke by RMB 100/tonne and dry-quenched coke by RMB 110/tonne. With this round in place, cumulative gains for wet-quenched coke have reached RMB 450–475/tonne.
While costs keep climbing, supply is contracting in tandem. The latest ten-day report from the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA) shows that in the last third of August, daily crude steel output at key steelmakers averaged 1.885 million tonnes, down 4.0% MoM, while finished steel inventories fell to 16.25 million tonnes, a sharp 11.4% MoM drop. The combination of low supply and low inventories is underpinning the floor under steel prices.
However, higher costs have yet to pass through smoothly to finished steel. On September 7, the ferrous complex diverged notably on the futures market: the rebar主力 contract closed at RMB 3,153/tonne, down RMB 7, and hot-rolled coil fell RMB 14. Pressured by expectations of coal supply guarantees, coking coal and coke futures both slid over 2%, while iron ore bucked the trend with a 1.17% gain, returning above USD 100 per tonne.
On the spot market, the average price of 20mm Grade-III seismic rebar across 31 major cities held flat at RMB 3,338/tonne; HRC edged down RMB 7 to RMB 3,364/tonne; and Tangshan Qian'an billet fell RMB 10 to RMB 3,030/tonne.
Mill profitability has now slipped to around 30%. Widening losses are forcing more maintenance shutdowns and output cuts, yet the release of "Golden September" end-user demand remains slow, with trading driven mainly by just-in-time needs and speculative buying largely absent. Analysts generally view further downside as limited and the market bottom as largely established, expecting range-bound trading in the near term, with the upside hinging on whether peak-season demand actually materializes.