Posted on 22 Mar 2024
Over this year's January-February period, crude steel output among China's top 10 steelmaking provinces and autonomous regions amounted to 121.56 million tonnes, lower by 1.11% from the same period last year, with five out of the 10 posting on-year rises in output and the other five showing falls, according to the latest statistics released by the country's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
NBS has released combined data for January-February to factor out the holiday effect caused by the Chinese New Year (CNY) break, which typically falls sometime during the two months, Mysteel Global notes.
Slack demand for their steel and their thinner profits or even losses during the first two months forced many Chinese steel producers in these regions to slow their pace of production or halt operations completely and conduct maintenance, Mysteel Global noted.
For example, over January-February, except for during the eight-day CNY holiday the spot trading volume of rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among the 237 Chinese trading houses under Mysteel's tracking averaged 88,183 tonnes/day, lower by a huge 20.1% from the same period last year.
At the same time, the profit ratio among the 247 blast furnace (BF) mills under Mysteel's tracking averaged 26.5%, lower by 4.8 percentage points on year, Mysteel's survey showed.
Notably, Southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region registered the largest on-year rise in steel output among these regions during the two months, with its tonnage jumping by 17.46% on year to reach 7.13 million tonnes.
The shorter downtime for maintenance observed by local mini-mills this year was part of the reason for the surge in output, a Guangxi steel market watcher explained.
Meanwhile, a major local steel firm in Guangxi, Liuzhou Iron & Steel Co, operated normally during this year's January-February period whereas last year during the same two months, one of its blast furnaces was offline for an overhaul, the Guangxi source explained, adding that this also contributed to the region's higher steel output this year.
Jan-Feb steel output among China's top 10 steel-producing hubs
Ranking | Province/Autonomous Region | Volume (mln t) | Y-o-Y (%) |
1 | Hebei | 36.35 | -0.38 |
2 | Jiangsu | 20.62 | 7.34 |
3 | Shandong | 12.15 | -2.72 |
4 | Liaoning | 11.67 | -7.53 |
5 | Shanxi | 9.67 | -6.12 |
6 | Guangxi | 7.13 | 17.46 |
7 | Guangdong | 6.23 | 10.07 |
8 | Anhui | 6.14 | 3.72 |
9 | Hubei | 5.91 | 9.44 |
10 | Fujian | 5.69 | -1.22 |
Total |
| 121.56 | -1.11 |
Source: NBS
Source:Mysteel Global
