Over June 3-9, the blast furnace (BF) capacity utilization rate among 247 Chinese steel mills under Mysteel’s regular survey exceeded 90% again, or up for the seventh straight week to 90.14% as of June 9, as some mills had been resuming operations or increasing output on their improved steel margins.
During the latest survey period, these mills saw their BF capacity utilization rate gain 0.24 percentage point on week, and their daily molten iron output edged up accordingly by 6,500 tonnes/day on week to 2.43 million t/d in total, while their BF operational rate also inclined by 0.42 percentage point on week to 84.11%.
“Last week, some mills across the country had resumed operations after completing maintenance works or even ramped up operations, in response to their improved profit margins and decreasing steel stocks at hand,” a Shanghai-based market watcher explained.
For example, inventories of the five major carbon steel products comprising rebar, wire rod, hot-rolled coil, cold-rolled coil and medium plate at 184 Chinese steel mills under Mysteel’s survey had decreased for the fourth week to touch a 10-week low of 6.37 million tonnes by June 9.
Moreover, recently-improved market sentiment with the lifting of the COVID lockdown in Shanghai since June 1 had also boosted some steelmakers’ enthusiasm for production, Mysteel Global noted.
During the same survey period, the daily consumption of imported iron ore among the 247 surveyed mills edged up accordingly by 9,500 t/d on week to 2.97 million t/d on average, Mysteel’s data showed.
As of June 9, total inventories of imported iron ore in all forms including the volumes at steelworks, port stockyards and on the water held by these 247 mills reversed from three weeks of declines, up by 1.02 million tonnes on week to 108.2 million tonnes. The total tonnage would be sufficient for 36.4 days of use, or 0.23 day longer than the previous survey period.
Written by Lindsey Liu, liulingxian@mysteel.com
This article has been published under an article exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and SteelMint.
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