Posted on 17 May 2023
China's total crude steel output maintained the uptrend to 354.4 million tonnes over January-April, while the pace slowed to 4.1% on year as against the 6.1% rise for the first three months, mainly owing to the lower production in April, according to the latest data released by the country's National Bureau of Statistics on May 16.
For April alone, China produced 92.64 million tonnes of crude steel, down 1.5% from the same month last year, while the daily output remained stable on month at 3.09 million tonnes/day, Mysteel Global calculated based on the NBS data.
The country's crude steel production retreated in April mainly due to the fact that some electric-arc-furnace (EAF) mills started to trim their production since the beginning of last month given their shrinking profit margins and the lower-than-expected demand from end-users.
Blast furnace mills across China also joined the queue to conduct maintenance on their steelmaking facilities in the second half of the month to ease market pressure from the supply side after noting the persistent weakness in the country's finished steel prices, Mysteel Global learned.
Over April 21-27, the capacity utilization among the 87 sampled EAF mills under Mysteel's survey declined for the fourth consecutive week to 56.26%, or lower by 11.92 percentage points on month, and that among the 247 BF steel mills under its tracking registered 90.63% during the same period, edging down for the second week but it was still 0.07 percentage point higher than one month before.
By the end of April, only 26.4% of the 247 BF steel mills under Mysteel's regular survey could gain some profits, much lower than the ratio of 58.87% recorded one month earlier due to the rapid decrease in domestic steel prices.
As of April 28, China's national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar, a bellwether of domestic steel-market sentiment, was assessed by Mysteel at Yuan 3,877/tonne ($557/t) including the 13% VAT, sliding by Yuan 415/t compared with the end of March.
Last month, the daily trading volume of construction steel comprising rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among the country's 237 traders under Mysteel's tracking averaged 163,552 t/d, down 8,477 t/d or 4.9% on month, or far below the average of more than 200,000 t/d considered usual for March-April, the normally peak months for steel consumption in China.
China's finished steel output in April still posted an on-year rise of 5% to 119.95 million tonnes, and the combined production for the first four months of this year reached 446.36 million tonnes, up 5.2% from the same period last year, according to the NBS data.
Source:Mysteel Global
