SUBSCRIBER NOTE: Platts Analytics updates China Steel Mill Margins

S&P Global Platts has updated its Platts Analytics' China Steel Mill Margins price series effective July 3, 2017.

The alterations are designed to further align with Chinese steel mill raw materials inputs and costs in light of continued changes to raw material burdens.

The Platts MVS China HRC Domestic Steel Mill Margin and Platts MVS China Rebar Domestic Steel Mill Margin provide an indication of the spread of raw material and other costs against finished steel prices using MVS's proprietary modelling.

The daily spreads use Chinese domestic hot-rolled coil and reinforcing bar prices against a variety of input costs.

These include several different grades of metallurgical coal, Chinese domestic met coke, ferrous scrap, and various iron ore products including fines, concentrate, lump and pellets.

They use assumptions arrived at by market survey with steel mills around operating costs and logistics, providing an indication of underlying mill margins.

The Platts MVS spreads represent the difference between ex-VAT prices of finished steel products with VAT-inclusive raw material prices.

The spreads are published using the daily USD/CNY exchange rate.

The spreads reflect those from a typical large northern China coastal steel mill.

Underlying steel mill operations and markets related to calculating the spreads are tracked by Platts Analytics on an ongoing basis, with changes to the model reviewed on a quarterly basis.

More details and a list of the price assessments used in the two spreads is available from alina.wills@spglobal.com.

Please submit any feedback, comments or questions to alina.wills@spglobal.com.

For written comments, please provide a clear indication if comments are not intended for publication by Platts for public viewing. Platts will consider all comments received and will make comments not marked as confidential available upon request.