Reality check on demand – The feedback from producers as of early
October suggests that: 1) for the downstream sectors, inventory of finished
goods remained mostly normal, 2) end-user demand for basic materials in
September was mostly in line with producers’ expectation. The MoM trend
for order book for finished goods in October is flat to positive, yet likely
decelerating, as the percentage of respondents who saw sequential
improvement fell from 67% for September to 38% for October and 3)
material demand points to a further diverse trend into October, while cement
demand continues to move up, and order books for steel and coal appear
stagnant MoM. The percentage of producers seeing improving MoM demand
was 0% for steel mills (down from 20% in September), 100% for cement
producers (flat versus September) and 0% for coal producers (down from
20% in September).
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Steel – weak near-term order book, but expect balanced 2010E
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Coal – power demand up, better balanced 2H09
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Cement– price picks up, yet still lag expectations for most regions
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Aluminium – strong semi-product growth
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Alumina – price rising with smelter restart
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Copper – import remains strong