Posted on 26 Dec 2022
The blast furnace (BF) capacity utilization rate among 247 Chinese steel mills under Mysteel's survey retreated slightly from the prior week's incline, down by 0.25 percentage point on week to 82.39% over December 16-22, as some of the surveyed mills had reined in their steel output amid the lukewarm demand from downstream users.
During the latest survey period, these mills' hot metal output decreased accordingly by another 9,300 tonnes/day on week to 2.22 million t/d on average, and their BF operational rate also nudged down by 0.04 percentage point on week to 75.93% as of December 22.
After China's central government further optimized COVID-19 prevention and control measures two weeks ago, it has seen a rapidly increasing number of pandemic cases across the country. As a result, the impacted steel-consuming industries led to a shrinking demand from end-users, Mysteel Global noted.
Moreover, the cold winter temperatures in many regions of China continued to affect outdoor construction activities and resulted in the seasonal slack steel demand in the physical market.
For example, the daily trading volume of construction steel comprising rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among 237 Chinese trading houses under Mysteel's tracking averaged at a relatively low level of 119,377 t/d over December 16-22, plunging 26.1% from the previous week.
Consequently, the daily consumption of imported iron ore among the surveyed mills decreased by 3,700 t/d on week to 2.75 million t/d on average over December 16-22.
By December 22, these mills' total inventories of imported iron ore in all forms including the volumes at steelworks, port stockyards and on the water had increased for the fifth week by another 2.26 million tonnes on week to 94.65 million tonnes. Their ore stocks would be sufficient to last for 34.44 days of use, or 0.87 day longer than the previous survey period.
Source:Mysteel Global
