Steel market participants often identify iron ore as the key driver of steel prices because mills typically formulate their pricing strategies based on raw material costs - but this appears to have changed in 2020.
While some unique challenges have emerged this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, one development that stood out from the rest is this: Iron ore market participants have attributed the sharp price increases in the steelmaking raw material to the downstream steel market instead, in particular that for hot-rolled coil, the darling steel commodity that has outshone other products.Fastmarkets' daily price assessment of steel hot-rolled coil domestic, ex-whs Eastern China was 3,820-3,840 yuan ($561-564) per tonne on Monday September 28 after falling from a 22-month...