On September 10, two steel mills announced price adjustments on the same day. Vina Kyoei raised prices by VND 100 per kg for project and construction orders, effective September 11.Người Quan Sát The same day, Thep Mien Nam, a VNSTEEL unit, raised prices by VND 200,000 per ton for CB400-V and CB500-V rebar, effective September 21.Người Quan Sát
This is the first adjustment after a long stretch of flat prices. Hoa Phat's D10 CB300 rebar has held at VND 14,210 per kg continuously since late July, roughly six weeks without moving. Domestic rebar prices across August and early September only ranged between VND 13,840 and 15,150 per kg depending on the brand.Doanh Nghiệp Hội Nhập
The cost side has run far ahead
Looking at the numbers, the gap is stark. In exactly one month, from August 10 to September 10, world coking coal prices climbed from USD 217.67 to USD 274.00 per ton, up 25.9%. This is the primary blast-furnace input, alongside iron ore, in the crude steel formula.
The other inputs rose far more slowly. Iron ore went from USD 94.55 to USD 98.68 per ton, up 4.4%. Scrap steel rose from USD 379.50 to USD 392.50 per ton, up 3.4%. Hot-rolled coil (HRC) climbed from USD 1,204 to USD 1,277 per ton, up 6.1%.
Coking coal alone was pushed higher by a campaign in China, not by Middle East tensions. A crackdown on mine safety in key production regions choked output, driving coking coal prices to their highest level since late 2024.Doanh Nghiệp Hội Nhập On top of that, shipping costs added further pressure: ocean freight rates hit a five-year high in early September, and most of Vietnam's iron ore and coking coal arrives by sea.Doanh Nghiệp Hội Nhập
Placing the two sides side by side shows the gap. Thep Mien Nam's VND 200,000-per-ton increase amounts to roughly 1.4% on a typical rebar price base of VND 14,000-15,000 per kg. Vina Kyoei's VND 100-per-kg increase is roughly 0.7%. Within that same one-month window, coking coal alone got 25.9% more expensive. In other words, mills are not passing the full cost increase on to buyers. They are passing on a fraction and absorbing the rest themselves.
Why rebar could still raise prices
The answer comes from the demand side, and it is uneven across product segments. Per data the Vietnam Steel Association released on August 17 for the first seven months of 2026, crude steel output reached 17.92 million tons, up 28% year-on-year; finished steel output reached 21.4 million tons, up 15.4%.Báo Xây Dựng Construction steel consumption alone reached nearly 9 million tons, up 19.6%, largely absorbed by the domestic market on the back of public investment disbursement.Tin Nhanh Chứng Khoán
The rest of the sector moved in the opposite direction entirely. In the same report, galvanized-sheet output fell 13.5% and cold-rolled coil fell 10.2% year-on-year.Báo Xây Dựng This is exactly the detail steel shareholders should watch: the whole industry is absorbing the same cost shock, but only the half with infrastructure demand behind it managed to announce a price hike. Hoa Sen and Nam Kim, the two largest galvanized-sheet makers listed on the exchange, buy HRC as their key input. HRC prices are up 6.1% over the past month, while that segment's output volume is falling by double digits.
Q2 margins are a snapshot from before the shock
In Q2 2026, gross margins expanded across the four leading steelmakers: Hoa Phat reached 19.01%, Hoa Sen 15.27%, Nam Kim 10.53%, and VNSTEEL 5.69%. Nam Kim improved the most, jumping from 2.61% in Q1 to 10.53%.
These numbers look good, but they need to be read in their proper time context. Q2 ended on June 30, before coking coal started running and before freight rates hit their five-year high. The cost pressure building up now will land in Q3 cost of goods sold, while the just-announced price increases only partially take effect from September 21, enough to cover just the final ten days of the quarter. In other words, Q2 margins say nothing yet about the cost shock currently underway.
Three explanations for this price move
The September 10 adjustment can be explained several ways, and no single cause should get all the credit.
The first is input cost pass-through. This is the explanation the data supports most, since all four raw-material categories rose within the same month and coking coal rose by an amount mills simply could not fully absorb.
The second is year-end infrastructure demand. Public investment disbursement through August 20 reached only VND 477,178 billion, equivalent to 46.7% of plan, meaning more than half the annual volume must be squeezed into the final four months.FireAnt That expectation gives mills a cushion to test a price increase.
The third is a regional spillover effect. Chinese mills stockpiled raw materials ahead of a holiday, pushing iron ore futures to their highest level since late July and lifting the regional price floor.Doanh Nghiệp Hội Nhập
If real demand were the dominant driver, the price increase would have been much larger and would have spread to galvanized sheet as well. The fact that the increase is only around 1% and appears solely in rebar suggests the first explanation dominates, with the second acting as an enabling condition rather than the primary driver.
Household demand still isn't carrying the sector
The pillar holding up construction steel right now is infrastructure, not housing. In the first half of 2026, the real estate market offered nearly 98,000 new units for sale, up roughly 50% year-on-year, yet the absorption rate stood at only about 58%.MarketTimes Real estate inventory in Q2 exceeded 39,000 units and land plots, with standalone housing inventory up 46.4% quarter-on-quarter.MarketTimes That is why galvanized-sheet makers, which sell heavily into residential construction, still have no clear path to higher volumes.
In Thursday morning trading on September 11, steel stocks reacted cautiously. HPG traded around VND 21,550, down 1.37%. HSG sat at VND 10,400, down 0.95% after three straight flat sessions. NKG fell 1.88% to VND 10,450. The VN-Index retreated to 1,813.71 points, down 0.85%.
What to watch in the Q3 earnings
For anyone holding steel stocks, the number that matters is not the listed selling price but the Q3 gross margin, due at the end of October. The Q2 benchmarks are already set: 19.01% for Hoa Phat, 15.27% for Hoa Sen, and 10.53% for Nam Kim.
If rebar-segment margins hold close to Q2 levels, this price increase plus infrastructure demand was enough to cover the added cost. If margins narrow, the gap between coking coal's 25.9% jump and the roughly 1% price increase flowed straight into cost of goods sold. For galvanized-sheet makers, the metric to watch alongside margin is monthly sales volume: as long as that keeps falling, these companies have no room to pass costs on to buyers.
Signals worth tracking over the next six weeks: whether public investment disbursement accelerates as expected for the final four months of the year, whether coking coal and freight rates cool off before Q3 closes, and whether galvanized-sheet makers get forced into announcing the sector's next price move or keep sitting this one out.