Over May 20-26, the blast furnace capacity utilization rate among China’s 247 steel mills under Mysteel’s survey nudged up for the fifth straight week by another 0.59 percentage point on week to 89.26%, as some steelmakers in North, East and Southeast China had continued to resume their operations after regular maintenance works.
Over the latest survey period, these 247 sampled steel mills produced 2.41 million tonnes/day of hot metal on average, up 13,400 t/d on week, and their blast furnace operational rate also edged up by another 0.82 percentage point on week to 83.83% as of May 26.
“Even though the declining steel prices and the relatively high production costs had forced some steelmakers to operate at losses, these mills still intended to resume operations, reasoning that production suspension will result in even deeper losses,” the market watcher responsible for the survey told Mysteel Global.
On the other hand, although some mills across the country have been struggling to keep producing, some mills in Southwest China have been forced to rein in output amid their persistently increasing losses, according to her.
As a result, Mysteel’s survey found that a total of nine blast furnaces had resumed operations over May 20-26, while another four furnaces were idled.
During the same survey period, the daily consumption of imported iron ore among the 247 surveyed mills edged up accordingly by 19,300 t/d on week to 2.96 million t/d on average, Mysteel’s data showed.
As of May 26, 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 decreased for the second week by another 611,600 tonnes on week to 108.5 million tonnes, largely due to mills’ cautious buying while their marginally increased consumption. The total tonnage would be sufficient for 36.64 days of their use, or 0.45 day shorter 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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