“Outages are going to be a blip on my radar because they’re planned. Eight planned outages are better than one unplanned [outage],” another distributor said.

The agreement comes against a complicated auto and green steel backdrop.

Buyside contacts expressed concerns about increased import costs after the yuan devalued sharply against the dollar.

But some steel industry observers think concerns might be overblown.

Baosteel is looking to start up a hydrogen/natural-gas based DRI plant at its Zhanjiang facility in southern China.

Build a new China-ASEAN commodity channel to promote new domestic and international dual circulation development

ChemX rolls out maiden Jamieson Tank manganese resource

Top nickel producer Indonesia will not approve any new mining output quotas this year, government official Septian Hario Seto said, a move likely to further tighten supplies of nickel ore.