Posted on 25 Oct 2022
China's daily crude steel output continued falling during the middle ten days of October, with the volume dipping by another 12,100 tonnes/day or 0.4% from the prior ten days to average 2.88 million t/d, according to Mysteel's survey among 247 blast-furnace (BF) and 85 electric-arc-furnace (EAF) steel mills nationwide.
During October 11-20, more domestic steel mills in North and Northwest China were conducting maintenance on their steelmaking facilities in response to local authorities' air quality control measures, leading to the further decrease in crude steel output, Mysteel Global learned. Contributing too was the fact that mills slowed output to reduce the losses they are suffering due to poor finished-steel sales.
Mysteel's latest weekly survey among the surveyed 247 BF steel mills assessed their capacity utilization rate at 88.26% over the October 14-20 period, down 0.78 percentage point from the prior week.
Besides, domestic steel prices had been steadily weakening during mid-October with the lower-than-expected demand from end-users, sources noted. This squeezed the profit margins of steelmakers and dampened their enthusiasm for production, Mysteel Global noted.
For example, the national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar, a bellwether of domestic steel-market sentiment, was assessed by Mysteel at Yuan 4,039/tonne ($557/t) including the 13% VAT as of October 20, lower by Yuan 162/t compared with ten days earlier and touching the lowest since July 22.
Over October 11-20, the daily trading volume of construction steel comprising rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among the 237 Chinese trading houses under Mysteel's regular tracking averaged 156,308 t/d, much lower than the average of more than 200,000 t/d usually recorded in October, traditionally a peak month for steel consumption.
Source:Mysteel Global
