Posted on 30 Oct 2023
The blast furnace (BF) capacity utilization rate among the 247 Chinese steelmakers under Mysteel's regular survey ended a three-week drop and edged up by 0.11 percentage point on week to average 90.73% during October 20-26. The slight uptick was mainly because some BFs in North China were brought back online after maintenance stoppages, Mysteel Global noted.
Accordingly, the daily output of hot metal among the sampled steel mills averaged 2.43 million tonnes/day, higher by a small 2,900 t/d or 0.11% on week, while their operational rates also picked up for the second straight week by another 0.15 percentage point on week to reach 82.49%, the survey showed.
"Some steelmakers in North China completed their brief maintenance work on furnaces and resumed production this week," a market analyst in Shanghai said. During the latest survey period, 10 BFs across the country were restarted, while another nine were shut off for maintenance, according to Mysteel's tracking.
"Steelmakers in South and Northwest China further reduced their BF production to cut losses," the market analyst added. "Domestic hot metal is likely to fall again next week as most mills are still suffering severe losses on steel sales," she believed.
Mysteel's other survey showed that among the 247 sampled steelmakers, only 38 could enjoy some healthy profits during October 20-26, refreshing the lowest level since early November last year.
The negative margins made steelmakers more cautious about buying feed materials, especially when the imported iron ore prices still fluctuated at a high level, Mysteel Global noted.
The slower ore procurement led these mills' imported iron ore inventories to decline even though their consumption of the feedstock dipped due to its comparatively high costs, Mysteel's survey showed.
The daily consumption of imported iron ore among the 247 mills under Mysteel's tracking averaged 2.96 million t/d over October 20-26, lower by 3,500 t/d or 0.1% on week. As of October 26, imported iron ore stocks held by these mills dipped 0.4% on week to total 90.4 million tonnes, which would be sufficient for 30.6 days of their use, 0.08 day shorter than in the previous period, according to Mysteel's assessment.
Source:Mysteel Global
