Posted on 10 Jan 2025
The ongoing maintenance works among Chinese blast furnace (BF) steelmakers continued curbing the mills' hot metal production, Mysteel's latest survey showed.
The average capacity utilization rate of the 247 BF steel producers under Mysteel's tracking had slid for the eighth straight week to reach 84.24% during January 3-9, lower by 0.31 percentage point from the prior week.
During the same period, the average operational rate among these sampled mills also fell by 0.92 percentage point on week to 77.18%, with their daily production of hot metal decreasing 8,300 tonnes/day or 0.4% on week to 2.24 million t/d, the survey showed.
More blast furnaces were blown off to undergo annual maintenance for one to two months as the Chinese New Year holiday is approaching, Mysteel Global learned.
As such, the daily consumption of imported iron ore by the same 247 BF mills declined for the fourth straight week by another 10,600 t/d or 0.4% on week to reach 2.8 million t/d during January 3-9, according to Mysteel's tracking.
Meanwhile, domestic integrated steelmakers' winter restocking for the feed material continued, leading to a further increase in their ore stocks, Mysteel's survey showed.
As of January 9, the total inventories of imported iron ore in all forms held by the 247 steel mills accumulated for eight consecutive weeks to touch an 11-month high at 100.7 million tonnes, rising by 2.15 million tonnes or 2.2% from a week earlier.
The existing stocks would be sufficient to last these mills for 36 days at their current consumption rate, 0.9 day longer than the previous period, Mysteel assessed.
Nevertheless, some steelmakers that were conducting overhauls during the past month are about to finish the works and may gradually restart production in the coming weeks, which is likely to lead to an increase in domestic hot metal output, Mysteel Global learned.
The recovery in steel margins also encouraged some mills to postpone their maintenance plans, according to Mysteel's survey. As of January 9, more than half of the 247 BF steelmakers under Mysteel's tracking could make some profits on steel sales.
Source:Mysteel Global
