Posted on 27 Feb 2023
Daily crude steel output among the member mills of the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA) continued to move up over the middle 10 days of February, with the tonnage up another 30,700 tonnes/day or 1.5% from late January to average 2.09 million t/d, according to the latest release of the association on February 23.
Based on the data, CISA estimated that China's national daily crude steel output came in at 2.56 million t/d on average over February 11-20, higher by 1.03% compared with the prior 10 days, the release showed.
The continuous rise was mainly attributed to the fact that more electric-arc-furnace (EAF) steelmakers resumed operations during the survey period, and the production of Chinese blast-furnace (BF) mills also stayed high with the expectation for a further recovery in steel demand in the coming term, Mysteel Global learned.
The result was in line with Mysteel's weekly survey, which showed that over February 10-16, the capacity utilization rate among the 87 sampled EAF steel mills jumped by 25.01 percentage points on week to 48.34%, and that among the 247 surveyed BF mills under Mysteel's tracking also witnessed another on-week rise of 0.82 percentage point to 85.75% during the same period.
China's finished steel prices recovered slightly in mid-February thanks to the improved demand, with the national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar, a bellwether of domestic steel-market sentiment under Mysteel's assessment, reaching Yuan 4,297/tonne ($621/t) including the 13% VAT as of February 20, gaining Yuan 37/t from 10 days earlier.
Also, the daily trading volume of construction steel comprising rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among the 237 Chinese trading houses under Mysteel's regular survey registered 153,272 t/d over February 11-20, up by 66,086 t/d from the average over February 6-10, as more end-users have returned to the market for replenishment.
Mysteel's other survey checking the status of some 12,220 construction projects nationwide showed that as of February 21, about 86% of these projects had resumed operations, up by 9.6 percentage points from one week before.
Meanwhile, speculative demand also picked up amid positive sentiment in China's steel market, giving domestic steel producers some confidence to ramp up production, Mysteel Global noted.
CISA member mills' finished steel stocks continued to mount in mid-February, climbing by 1.5 million tonnes or 8.3% from 10 days earlier to hover at 19.53 million tonnes as of February 20, according to the release.
Source:Mysteel Global
