Many electric furnace plants in China had already resumed working and production after the Chinese New Year (CNY) holiday, which helped increase scrap consumption.

When the inventories rate became lower, the current scrap price thus increased. According to some insiders, it was expected that scrap consumption in China market would increase further in the short term.

Most scrap steel processing mills in China resumed production last week, and the scrap suppliers mainly targetted on fast trade of in-and-out orders which reduced the overall market inventories. It helped push scrap prices and the prices would continue to rise.

In addition, high-priced iron ore and coking coal were the reasons behind it. The large rate of resuming production caused lower inventories after CNY, and scrap steel prices rose sharply in early March.

According to some suppliers, they felt optimistic about the market in the coming future. With the growing demand for rebars for construction sites, it was highly expected that scrap consumption would return to the previous high level this month and therefore the prices would certainly remain strong in the short term.