Posted on 26 Apr 2022
During mid-April, daily crude steel output among the member mills of China Iron & Steel Association (CISA) had continued to increase, though it was still lower than the same period of last year, according to CISA's latest sharing on April 24. This was mainly because some mills were still under the pressure of limited raw materials availability or squeezed profit margins with tepid steel demand, sources shared.
Over April 11-20, CISA's member mills saw their daily crude steel production grow further by 11,600 tonnes/day or 0.5% from the first 10 days of April to 2.24 million t/d on average, but this result was 3.8% lower than the corresponding period in 2021, CISA's official data showed.
Based on this result, CISA also projected that China's national daily crude steel output had edged up by 0.4% during the ten days to an average of 2.89 million t/d for mid-April. In addition, the country's daily finished steel output was estimated at 3.77 million t/d on average, or up 2% during the same period.
In sync with CISA's prediction, Mysteel's earlier survey among the 247 domestic blast-furnace and 71 electric-arc-furnace mills it monitors regularly showed that their daily crude steel production grew further by 39,600 t/d or 1.4% from the previous 10 days to average 2.84 million t/d during the middle ten days of April. More domestic mills had resumed or lifted their production gradually during the period, as Mysteel Global reported.
Finished steel inventories at CISA's member mills mounted further amid the rise in output. As of April 20, the total volume had refreshed a new high for this year, growing by 6.4% from April 10 or swelling by 23.6% from the same period of 2021 to 19.7 million tonnes, the CISA data showed.
Chinese spot steel sales had still been hindered in mid-April due to the restricted demand from end-users with the ongoing COVID spread sweeping many regions of China. The daily trading volume of construction steel comprising rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among the 237 steel trading houses Mysteel surveys had slid 2,893 t/d from early April to average 173,694 t/d over April 11-20.
Chinese steel prices were still hovering high as of mid-April. For example, the national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar, a barometer of domestic steel market sentiment, was assessed by Mysteel at Yuan 5,140/tonne ($791/t) including the 13% VAT as of April 20, up further by Yuan 11/t from April 8.
Source:Mysteel Global
