Posted on 06 Apr 2022
Daily crude steel production among the 247 Chinese blast-furnace and 71 electric-arc-furnace steel mills under Mysteel's regular survey grew further over the last eleven days of March - albeit at the slower pace of 2.1% - to 2.78 million tonnes/day on average, a new high since mid-September 2021.
Although the uptrend continued in late March, the growth had slowed as some BF mills in Tangshan in North China's Hebei had to curb their production pace, given the slower transportation of steelmaking raw materials caused by the traffic controls the city had introduced to combat the spread of COVID-19.
Output of many EAF mills also decreased recently as their profit margins have been squeezed by higher scrap prices, dampening their enthusiasm for production, Mysteel Global learned.
Mysteel's other survey among the surveyed 247 BF mills showed that their capacity utilization averaged 83.76% over March 25-31, down 1.67 percentage points from the seven-month high over the prior week.
Chinese domestic steel prices strengthened in late March on support of the higher raw materials costs and the better expectation for demand in the coming term.
As of March 31, China's national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar was assessed by Mysteel at a five-month high Yuan 5,076/tonne ($798/t) including the 13% VAT, higher by Yuan 121/t from that on March 18. Mysteel SEADEX 62% Australian Fines iron ore index increased by $6.45/dmt during the same period to $157.7/dmt CFR Qingdao.
However, transactions in the physical steel market were unsatisfactory in late March as consumption among end-users in some regions such as East China was still impacted by the stricter control measures to curb the spread of COVID-19, Mysteel Global noted.
Over March 21-31, the daily trading volume of construction steel comprising rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among the 237 steel traders across China under Mysteel's regular survey averaged 160,029 t/d, down another 9,131 t/d or 5.4% from the prior ten days.
Source:Mysteel Global
