Posted on 28 Oct 2024
Production among Chinese blast furnace (BF) steel producers continued expanding this week, with more mills restarting operations from maintenance stoppages, even though the number of profitable mills decreased, Mysteel's latest survey showed.
During October 18-24, the average capacity utilization rate among the 247 BF steel mills under Mysteel's regular survey climbed for the eighth straight week to reach 88.48%, higher by 0.49 percentage point from the previous week, while their daily output of hot metal also went up by 0.6% on week to 2.36 million tonnes/day.
Over the same period, the operational rates among these sampled mills averaged 82.14%, gaining 0.46 percentage point on week, the survey showed.
Four furnaces that had been idled for a long time were brought back online in the latest survey period as the mills wanted to secure more profits by raising output, while only one furnace in North China's Hebei was blown off for routine maintenance, Mysteel Global learned.
In tandem with their growing production, the daily consumption of imported iron ore by the 247 BF mills Mysteel tracks also increased by 19,200 t/d or 0.7% on week to 2.91 million t/d during October 18-24.
By October 24, the total inventories of imported iron ore in all forms held by these surveyed mills dropped by 0.3% on week to 89.8 million tonnes, which would be sufficient to last them for 30.9 days at their current usage rate, shorter by 0.3 day from the previous period, the survey showed.
However, many Chinese BF mills start to suffer losses again due to the steep drops in domestic steel prices over the past two weeks, which is likely to make the mills more cautious in ramping up production, Mysteel Global notes.
As of Thursday, for example, China's national spot price for HRB400E 20mm diameter rebar was assessed by Mysteel at Yuan 3,607/tonne ($507.1/t) including the 13% VAT, losing a total of Yuan 167/t or 4.4% on week.
By the same day, around 65% of the 247 BF steelmakers under Mysteel's tracking could make some profits on their steel sales, lower by a marked 9 percentage points from a week earlier.
Source:Mysteel Global
