Posted on 21 Feb 2025
Production among Chinese blast furnace (BF) steel producers continued edging down as more mills started regular maintenance works, Mysteel's latest survey showed.
The average capacity utilization rate of the 247 BF steel mills under Mysteel's tracking decreased for the second straight week by another 0.19 percentage point on week to 85.41% during February 14-20, with their daily production of hot metal decreasing 0.21% from the previous week to average 2.28 million tonnes/day.
During the same period, the operational rates among these sampled mills averaged 77.68%, down by 0.3 percentage point on week, the survey showed.
With domestic steel demand gradually recovering, a total of five idled blast furnaces were brought back on stream over the latest survey week as some mills intended to increase production, while six furnaces in North and Northeast China were blown off to undergo routine maintenance, Mysteel Global learned.
Consequently, the daily consumption of imported iron ore by the 247 mills Mysteel tracks averaged 2.83 million t/d during February 14-20, down by 0.2% compared with the previous week.
Meanwhile, domestic steelmakers' procurement of imported iron ore remained steady, leading to a marginal accumulation of their in-plant iron ore stocks, Mysteel Global observed. As of February 20, the total inventories of imported iron ore in all forms held by the 247 steelmakers under Mysteel's monitoring increased by 0.3% on week to reach 91.7 million tonnes.
The existing stocks would be sufficient to last these mills for 32.4 days at their current usage rate, longer by 0.2 day compared with the previous period, Mysteel assessed.
On the other hand, domestic BF steelmakers saw their profit margins continue shrinking, which is likely to undermine their production enthusiasm in the coming weeks, Mysteel's other survey showed. By Thursday, around 49.8% of the 247 BF mills under Mysteel's tracking could make some profits on steel sales, lower by nearly 1 percentage point from the previous period.
Source:Mysteel Global
