According to the price monitoring of SunSirs, stainless steel prices rose slightly this week. As of July 4, the average daily price of spot 304/2B stainless steel flat plate 1.0*1219*2438 (tolerance 0.91) was 11,857.14 RMB/ton, up 0.67% from the beginning of last week and down 8.39% year-on-year.

According to SunSirs ' analysis tool, nickel and stainless steel prices are basically similar, and both stainless steel and nickel prices have rebounded slightly recently.

Last week, stainless steel inventories totaled 115.74 million tons, up 1.04% from the previous week, among which both cold-rolled and hot-rolled inventories rose.

In terms of macroeconomics,

News: Indonesia plans to shorten the RKAB quota period from three years to one year to better control nickel ore supply and support nickel industry chain prices. The market may trade expectations of tighter nickel ore supply; multiple departments jointly rectify involutionary competition and eliminate backward production capacity, which will bring a certain boost to stainless steel prices, but the actual supply-side impact still needs to be verified.

Raw materials: The transaction price of Nissin ferronickel continued to drop to 910 RMB/nickel; the bidding price of Qingshan high carbon ferrochrome steel was the same as the previous period, and the bidding price of Taigang steel was reduced by 50 RMB month-on-month. It is expected that the price of ferrochrome will be stable.

Supply and demand: The domestic stainless steel production capacity reached 57.79 million tons, and the capacity utilization rate in 2024 was only 69%. The crude steel output in January-May 2025 increased by 20% year-on-year, and the social inventory was slowly reduced. After Qingshan had already significantly reduced the production of 100,000 tons of 400 series steelmaking in June, it plans to reduce the steelmaking volume by about 150,000 tons in July, bringing a certain degree of supply and demand contradiction easing expectations to the market. Demand: The real estate chain is weak, and the orders for building hardware and decorative pipes have dropped by 20%-30% year-on-year; the total export volume in January-May fell by 12% (the European market fell by 35%), intensifying domestic competition; under the trend of lightweight new energy vehicles, the growth of stainless steel in battery brackets has been partially replaced by aluminum alloy.

The news that Indonesia shortened the RKAB quota period and steel mills cut production has caused stainless steel prices to rise, but downstream demand is weak and the increase may be limited. With both supply and demand weak, stainless steel prices are expected to fluctuate in the short term.

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