Posted on 07 Mar 2023
Daily crude steel output among the member mills of the China Iron & Steel Association (CISA) during the last eight days of February continued the steady rise seen from the start of this year, with the late February output hitting the highest average since late June 2022, according to the association's latest data released on Monday.
Average daily output increased further and at faster pace over February 21-28, rising by 6.1% or 127,400 tonnes/day from mid-February to average 2.22 million t/d, as against the 1.5% uptick in the 10-day period in mid-February, the CISA data showed.
CISA attributed the marked rise in output to the fact that many large mills including China Baowu Steel Group, Hunan Iron & Steel Group, Anyang Iron & Steel Group, Beijing Jianlong Heavy Industry Group and Hebei Donghai Special Steel Group had significantly ramped up their production compared with the previous period.
Based on the latest statistics, CISA also estimated the country's daily crude steel output averaged 2.69 million t/d in late February, higher by 5.2% from February 11-20.
The findings of Mysteel's survey among a larger group of 334 Chinese steelmakers comprising 247 blast-furnace and 87 electric-arc-furnace mills were in line with CISA's analysis, as the surveyed mills' daily crude steel output climbed by 2.6% or 72,800 t/d from mid-February to 2.92 million t/d on average in late February.
Domestic steel demand had picked up further late last month, with spot sales of construction steel items such as rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among the 237 Chinese trading houses under Mysteel's tracking growing by 1.1% or 1,666 t/d from February 11-20 to reach an average of 154,938 t/d during late February.
Higher spot sales saw the member mills' finished steel stocks decline in late February, with the tonnage falling by 10.8% or 2.1 million tonnes from February 20 to 17.4 million tonnes as of February 28, according to the release.
Meanwhile, Chinese steel prices were rangebound during the period. As of February 28, the country's national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar, was assessed by Mysteel at Yuan 4,307/tonne ($624/t) including the 13% VAT, or up Yuan 10/t from that on February 20.
Source:Mysteel Global
