Blast furnace capacity utilization among the 247 Chinese steel mills under Mysteel’s regular survey increased for a sixth week over April 10-16, rising by another 1.16 percentage points on week to reach an 11-week high of 79.97%, as some steelmakers continued to ramp up output on the recovery of steel sales and decline of steel stocks. The rate is now close to the normal level of around 80% seen before the virus outbreak and the Chinese New Year holiday.
Accordingly, over the same survey period the surveyed mills’ daily molten iron ore output also grew for a sixth week, up by another 32,400 MT/day on week to 2.24 MnT/d as of April 16, same as the 2.24 MnT/d rate at January 24, Mysteel’s data shows.
Meanwhile, the operational rates of the 247 mills’ blast furnaces also posted further growth, edging up by 1.63 percentage points from the previous week to 80.49% as of April 16.
The continuous recovery in steel sales – driven by improved demand from end-users and the decline in steel stocks held by both steel mills and traders – encouraged more mills to maintain normal production or even lift their output, Mysteel Global noted.
Since April 2, the trading volume of construction steel comprising rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among the 237 traders under Mysteel’s survey has been hovering at or above the healthy level of 200,000 MT/d, according to Mysteel’s database.
Little wonder then that stocks of the five major finished steel products comprising rebar, wire rod, medium plate, hot-rolled coil and cold-rolled coil at commercial warehouses in 132 cities across China also declined further and faster over April 10-16, as Mysteel’s latest weekly stocks survey revealed. Inventories of the five had eased for a fifth successive week to reach 31.8 MnT as of April 16, down another 5.7% on week, with the pace of decline accelerating from the 4.2% week-on-week in the prior week.
Over April 10-16, Mysteel’s survey of a smaller sample of 163 steel plants across China showed that their blast furnace capacity utilization rate had increased too by another 0.82 percentage point on week to 76.73%.
This article has been published under an article exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and SteelMint.
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