The blast furnace (BF) capacity utilization rate among China’s 247 steel mills under Mysteel’s weekly survey remained largely steady at 89.04% over October 8-13, or reversing up by just 0.06 percentage point on week, as most steelmakers had not varied their operations much.
During the survey period, these mills’ hot metal output nudged up accordingly by 2,100 tonnes/day on week to 2.4 million t/d, while their BF operational rate retreated from the prior week’s incline, down by 0.88 percentage point on week to 82,62% as of October 13.
“Five BFs in North and Northeast China resumed operations after completing annual maintenance stoppages,” a Shanghai-based market watcher said.
Meanwhile, most steelmakers continued to maintain normal production thanks to firm restocking demand among downstream users after the country’s National Day holiday ended on October 7, Mysteel Global noted.
Nonetheless, market sentiment remained relatively cautious ahead of the convening of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in Beijing from October 16 and the start of the annual autumn-winter heating season, which is also a traditional off-season for finished steel consumption.
As a result, another 11 BFs, especially some small-sized ones in China’s northern regions, had been idled over the survey period, leading to an understandable retreat in their overall operational rate, according to the market watcher.
Accordingly, the daily consumption of imported iron ore among these mills edged up by 7,500 t/d on week to 2.96 million t/d on average, Mysteel’s data showed.
As of October 13, these 247 mills’ total inventories of imported iron ore in all forms including the volumes at steelworks, port stockyards and on the water increased by 684,400 tonnes on week to 97.7 million tonnes. The stocks will be sufficient to last them for 31.74 days of use, or 0.15 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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