China: BF mills’ hot metal production remains steady

• Sustained profitability keeps production stable
• Northeastern BFs brought online post maintenance

Mysteel: Production activity among Chinese blast furnace (BF) steel producers remained robust during the past week, as most mills were still enjoying positive profit margins, Mysteel’s latest survey showed.

During 15-21 August, the average capacity utilisation rate among the 247 BF mills under Mysteel’s tracking nudged up for the second straight week, albeit by a minimal 0.03 percentage point, to 90.3%. Their combined hot metal output also rose marginally by 0.04% from the previous week to 2.41 million tonnes (mnt)/day.

The increase was contributed mainly by steel mills in Northeast China, which brought their idled BFs back onstream after completing maintenance work, Mysteel Global learnt.

However, the surveyed 247 steel mills’ average operational rate slipped for the second consecutive week by another 0.2 percentage point to 83.4%, as more steelworks across the country blew off their furnaces to conduct regular maintenance, though the total capacity closed was relatively small.

The persistently high production of hot metal was supported by the stable profitability among steelmakers, Mysteel’s survey showed. As of 21 August, around 65% of the 247 tracked mills could still earn some profits on selling their steel products, though it was lower by 1 percentage point from a week ago.

Despite the increase in production, the total consumption of imported iron ore by the 247 BF steelmakers under Mysteel’s tracking averaged 2.98 mnt/d over 15-21 August, dipping 0.2% from the previous week.

By 21 August, the total inventories of imported iron ore in all forms held by the same 247 mills slid 0.8% from a week earlier to 90.7 million tonnes, the survey showed.

The existing stocks would be sufficient to last these mills for 30.4 days at their current usage rate, shorter by 0.2 day from the previous period, according to Mysteel’s assessment.

Note: This article has been written in accordance with a content exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and BigMint.