European grade-304 stainless steel prices may never fully recover from their present slump because of the need to compete with low-cost production from Asia, particularly in Indonesia, a European trader said on Friday 23 November.
The Tsingshan Group plant in Sulawesi, Indonesia, which has capacity of 1 million tonnes per year, mines its own nickel pig iron (NPI) and chromium, as well as having captive power - it therefore enjoys considerably lower production costs than European producers. European prices of grade-204 cold-rolled (CR)...