Posted on 15 Aug 2023
Total crude steel production across China registered a larger 2.5% on-year growth to reach 626.5 million tonnes over January-July, as against the 1.3% uptick for this year's first half, according to the latest data released by the country's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Tuesday.
For July alone, China churned out 90.8 million tonnes of crude steel, climbing by 11.5% on year, with the daily output averaging 2.93 million tonnes, lower by 3.6% from June, Mysteel Global calculated based on the NBS data.
The on-month decline in July output was mainly due to the fact that many steelmakers in China commenced maintenance on their steelmaking facilities last month as steel demand from end-users slowed down amid summer heat. And some mills in the northern part of the country conducted maintenance stoppages on their blast furnaces to improve local air quality, Mysteel Global learned.
Mysteel's other survey showed a similar trend to the latest NBS statistics, which found that the capacity utilization rate among 247 blast-furnace (BF) steel mills it tracks stood at 89.82% over July 21-27, down 2.16 percentage points on month. Meanwhile, that among the 87 electric-arc-furnace makers under Mysteel's monitoring also dipped 0.75 percentage point during the same period to 50.57%.
By end-July, 64.5% of the surveyed 247 BF mills managed to earn some profits – slightly higher than the ratio of 64.07% at the end of June. The further improvement in mills' profitability was chiefly thanks to the strengthening in Chinese finished steel prices, Mysteel Global noted.
The country's national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar, a bellwether of the country's steel-market sentiment, gained by Yuan 31/tonne ($4.3/t) on month to Yuan 3,886/t including the 13% VAT as of July 31, according to Mysteel's assessment.
Nevertheless, steel demand from end-users remained lackluster in July which is traditionally a non-peak month for steel consumption across the country. The daily trading volume of construction steel comprising rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among the 237 Chinese trading houses Mysteel checks averaged 149,972 tonnes/day last month, down 3.1% on month.
In July, Chinese finished steel output recorded 116.5 million tonnes, up 14.5% on year, taking the country's total finished steel production over January-July to 789 million tonnes, up 5.4% on year, according to the NBS data.
China's steel output over Jan-Jul
| Jul 2023 | Jan-Jul 2023 | ||
Volume (mln t) | YoY (%) | Volume (mln t) | YoY (%) | |
Crude steel | 90.80 | 11.5 | 626.51 | 2.5 |
Finished steel | 116.53 | 14.5 | 789.00 | 5.4 |
Pig iron | 77.60 | 10.2 | 528.92 | 3.5 |
Source: NBS
Source:Mysteel Global
