The capacity utilization rate of blast furnaces (BFs) operated by 247 Chinese steel mills had risen for the eighth consecutive week by another 0.75 percentage point on week to reach 89.08% over September 16-22, hitting a three-month high since late June, according to Mysteel’s latest survey.
Accordingly, these surveyed mills’ daily hot metal output had increased by another 20,200 tonnes/day on week to 2.4 million t/d as of September 22, also touching the highest late June, Mysteel’s data showed.
Meanwhile, the surveyed mills’ BF operational rate rose to 82.81% as of September 22, up 0.4 percentage point on week.
A Shanghai-based market watcher shared that some BFs in North, Northeast and Southwest China had resumed production over the past week, while some other furnaces in northern regions continued to ramp up production.
Nevertheless, the market watcher also predicted that Chinese steelmakers’ daily hot metal output may peak in the near term due to their low profit margins on finished steel sales.
For example, Mysteel’s survey showed that only 47.19% of the 247 mills could enjoy some profit margins by Thursday, down 5.63 percentage points on week.
On the other hand, the daily consumption of imported iron ore among these sampled mills edged up accordingly by 42,200 t/d on week to average 2.94 million t/d in total as of September 22.
As of Thursday, inventories of imported iron ore in all forms at these mills including ore sitting at steelworks, port stockyards and on the water grew by 1.27 million tonnes on week to 99.11 million tonnes, as some mills continued to restock ore for their near-term production during the upcoming China’s National Day holiday over October 1-7.
The tonnage will be sufficient for around 33.69 days of their use, or 0.05 day shorter than the previous survey period, Mysteel Global noted.
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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