Posted on 28 Nov 2022
The blast furnace (BF) capacity utilization rate among 247 Chinese steel mills under Mysteel's survey had dropped for the sixth straight week by another 0.84 percentage point on week to 82.52% over November 18-24, as ever-thinning profit margins continued to force steelmakers to curtail their production.
Accordingly, the surveyed mills' daily hot metal output had decreased for the sixth week by another 22,900 tonnes/day on week to 2.23 million t/d on average during the latest survey period, while their BF operational rate rebounded from a six-week slide, up 0.68 percentage point on week to 77.03% as of November 24.
As the recent recovery of steel prices had boosted market sentiment somewhat, some mills were encouraged to resume operations of small-sized BFs, which lifted their BF operational rate. However, many larger-sized furnaces that had been idled previously were yet to be resumed, limiting the overall output of hot metal, Mysteel Global noted.
Most steelmakers were still teetering close to losing money on their sales of finished steels, Mysteel's other survey showed, with only 22.51% of the same 247 mills being able to make profits as of Thursday, 35.5 percentage points lower than the same period last year.
In this scenario, the daily consumption of imported iron ore among these steelmakers fell further by 35,600 t/d on week to 2.76 million t/d over November 18-24.
During the same period, imported iron ore inventories at these mills increased accordingly, with the total volume in all forms including the tonnage at their steelworks, port stockyards and on the water, edging up 308,900 tonnes on week to 90.97 million tonnes as of November 24.
The tonnage could last for 33.02 days of their use, or 0.53 day longer than the prior survey period, according to Mysteel's assessment.
Source:Mysteel Global
