Posted on 18 Aug 2023
The blast furnace (BF) capacity utilization rate among 247 Chinese steelmakers under Mysteel's survey had continued edging up for the third straight week by another 0.76 percentage point on week to reach 91.79% over August 11-17, with many mills in North China lifting their steelmaking production.
Accordingly, daily hot metal output among these mills averaged 2.46 million tonnes/day during the same period, up 20,200 t/d on week, and the BF operational rate increased by 0.29 percentage point on week to 84.09%.
"Those steelmakers in (North China's) Tangshan who had resumed operations earlier this month with the end of environmental restrictions by July 31 were gradually lifting their production to full capacity this week," a ferrous analyst in Shanghai explained.
"Meanwhile, a new BF in Tangshan was brought on stream this week, so (Tangshan's) total hot metal production increased," the analyst added. This furnace was ignited in early July as part of BF capacity swap scheme in Tangshan, Mysteel Global noted.
Under such scenario, the daily average consumption of imported iron ore among the 247 sampled steelmakers had also climbed for the third consecutive week by another 32,100 t/d on week to reach 3 million t/d, hitting the highest level since June 2021, according to Mysteel's tracking.
However, the mills were earning less money from sales of finished steel products during the past two weeks, as Chinese steel prices followed a downtrend, Mysteel's other survey showed. As of August 17, about 59% of these 247 BF mills managed to make some profits, down two percentage points on week.
The thinner margins kept Chinese steelmakers staying cautious about procuring feed materials, with their iron ore stocks declining during the latest survey period.
As of August 17, the 247 mills' total inventories of imported iron ore in all forms including the tonnage at their steelworks, port stockyards and on the water dropped 233,900 tonnes on week to 83.7 million tonnes. The volume could last for 27.8 days of their use, or 0.38 day shorter than the prior survey period, according to Mysteel's assessment.
Source:Mysteel Global
