Posted on 05 Dec 2022
Rebar production among the 137 Chinese steelmakers regularly tracked by Mysteel dropped for the fifth straight week over November 24-30 to reach 2.84 million tonnes, according to the weekly survey. However, the pace of the decline in output slowed to just 0.3% during the survey week, compared with the 2% on-week fall in the prior week.
Rebar output during the survey period among steel producers in North, Northeast and East China in provinces such as Shanxi, Heilongjiang and Jiangsu fell substantially on-week as mills here conducted maintenance on their steelmaking facilities. However, this fall was largely offset by rising production among mills in Central China's Henan, Hunan and Southwest China's Sichuan, according to survey respondents, with the result that the overall on-week decline in output equated to a small 7,400 tonnes.
Over the period, rebar rolling capacity utilization among the surveyed producers inched down by 0.2 percentage point on week to 62.3%, while the operational rate of the rolling mills at the surveyed makers recovered by 1.3 percentage points during the same period to 48.2%, Mysteel's data showed.
Chinese steel prices have been fluctuating moderately, with the country's national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar, for example, slipping by a small Yuan 2/tonne ($0.3/t) on week to Yuan 3,941/t including the 13% VAT as of December 1, according to Mysteel's assessment.
Over November 25-December 1, the spot trading volume of construction steel including rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among the 237 steel trading houses under Mysteel's monitoring averaged 133,600 tonnes/day, 4% or 5,564 t/d lower on week. The low volume reflected the weakening demand from end-users as the recent cold snap hitting vast regions of the country slowed outdoor building activity, sources said.
Rebar inventories at the 137 sampled mills mounted for the second week, rising by another 1.8% or 31,700 tonnes on week to 1.82 million tonnes as of November 30.
Tonnage at the commercial warehouses in the 35 Chinese cities Mysteel monitors ended seven weeks of declines, rising by a similarly small 0.3% or 12,000 tonnes on week to 3.5 million tonnes as of December 1.
Source:Mysteel Global
