Posted on 24 Aug 2020
The blast furnace capacity utilization among the 247 Chinese steel mills reversed down after four weeks of inclines to 94.8% as of August 20, though still at the plateau since Mysteel updated the survey samples in January 2019, as most of the Chinese steelmakers have yet cut down on their production much on the soaring iron ore prices and meagre margins.
The utilization rate was down 0.36 percentage point on week, and these mills’ daily molten iron output reversed down by 9,700 tonnes/day on week to 2.52 million t/d in total over August 14-20, and the operational rate of these blast furnaces nudged down too by 0.52 percentage point on week to 91.41%, according to Mysteel’s database.
“Many outdoor construction works in China have been hampered to various degrees by the high temperatures, domestic steel demand has remained largely stable, supporting the domestic steel mills to run at high production,” a Shanghai-based market watcher said.
Over the survey period, daily spot trading volume of construction steel comprising rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among the 237 Chinese traders under Mysteel’s survey averaged 214,864 t/d, still up 3.3% on week.
At the same time, Chinese steelmakers are still enjoying positive margins despite recent rises in the iron ore prices to multi-year highs, and an official from a BF steel mills in East China disclosed that their rebar margin was at about Yuan 350/tonne ($50/t), though some steel mills’ margins were not as high, Mysteel Global understands.
By August 20, inventories of all imported iron ore at the 247 mills – including the tonnage at their plants, the ports, and on the water – had decreased for a second week by 315,000 tonnes on week to 109.5 million tonnes, being sufficient for 34.97 days of consumption, or 0.09 day shorter on week, according to Mysteel’s survey.
Over the period, these mills’ daily fines consumption of imported fines showed signs of decline during the week after three weeks of surges, down 1,100 t/d on week to 3.13 million t/d in total, Mysteel noted.
Over August 14-20, Mysteel’s survey on a smaller sample of 163 blast-furnace steel plants across China showed that their furnace capacity utilization decreased more by 0.59 percentage point on week to 79.34%.
Written by Lindsey Liu, liulingxian@mysteel.com
Edited by Hongmei Li, li.hongmei@mysteel.com
Source:Mysteel Global
