Posted on 07 May 2024
After completing maintenance works, Chinese blast furnace (BF) steelmakers brought more idled furnaces back online during April 27-May 5 when their profit margins on steel sales improved further, market sources observed.
Mysteel's survey showed the BF capacity utilization rates among the 247 BF steel producers it tracks nationwide averaged 86.24% over April 27-30, the last survey period before the national Labour Day holiday, higher by 0.71 percentage point from the previous week.
Meanwhile, their operational rate increased by 0.87 percentage point on week to reach 80.6%, and their hot metal output also rose by 19,500 tonnes/day or 0.9% on week to 2.31 million t/d during the same period, the survey found.
During the holiday over May 1-5, hot metal production at the sampled 247 steel mills increased further by some 21,100 t/d to reach 2.33 million t/d, Mysteel assessed.
"During the holiday, six blast furnaces were ignited and brought back onstream across the country, while only one furnace was shut off for routine maintenance," a market watcher based in Shanghai said.
Production among domestic BF mills remained relatively active as more mills could earn money on their steel sales recently, Mysteel Global noted.
As of April 30, around 53% of the same 247 steelmakers under Mysteel's survey managed to make profits on selling their steel products, higher by some 2 percentage points compared to the previous week.
In tandem, Chinese steel mills' demand for iron ore continued picking up, with the daily consumption of imported iron ore among the sampled 247 steelmakers averaging 2.81 million t/d during April 27-30, higher by 10,400 t/d on week, according to Mysteel's tracking.
Despite their growing consumption of the feedstock, Chinese steelmakers' iron ore inventories still went up at the end of last month, as many steel mills were building up ore stocks to meet their production needs during the holiday, as Mysteel Global reported.
By April 30, the total inventories of imported iron ore in all forms held by the sampled 247 steel mills increased by 1.5 million tonnes or 1.6% on week to reach 95.3 million tonnes. The stocks would be sufficient to last them for 34 days at their use rate at that time, longer by 0.4 day from the previous period, according to Mysteel's assessment.
Source:Mysteel Global
