Posted on 12 Jan 2023
China's daily crude steel output continued to decrease during the first ten days of January, with the tonnage down by another 104,500 tonnes/day or 3.9% from the late December period to average 2.6 million t/d, the lowest since last August, according to Mysteel's survey among 247 blast-furnace (BF) and 85 electric-arc-furnace (EAF) steel mills nationwide.
The continuing decrease reflected the fact that as usual, many Chinese BF and EAF mills have slowed production to conduct maintenance on their steelmaking facilities in the lead up to next week's Chinese New Year holiday, as more steel users have halted operations as well with the week-long break approaching, Mysteel Global noted.
Consequently, the capacity utilization rate among the 247 BF steel mills under Mysteel's regular tracking slipped to a five-month low of 81.93% over December 30-January 5, down 0.66 percentage point from the previous period, while that among the 85 EAF steel mills under its survey posted a significant fall of 13.2 percentage points to 31.56% during the same period, marking the lowest operation ratio for these mills since late February 2022.
China's domestic steel market has quietened gradually, with 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 survey averaging 83,850 t/d over January 1-10, lower by another 28,258 t/d or 25.2% from that over late December.
Domestic steel prices continued to rise in early January on support of higher production costs among the mills, due to the firming prices of steelmaking raw materials such as iron ore, Mysteel Global learned.
As of January 10, the national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar, a bellwether of domestic steel-market sentiment under Mysteel's assessment, was at a 4.5-month high of Yuan 4,229/tonne ($624/t) including the 13% VAT, gaining Yuan 65/t from that on December 30.
Also on Tuesday, Mysteel SEADEX 62% Australian Fines was assessed at $121.6/dmt CFR Qingdao, up by $4.3/dmt during the same period and touching the highest since June 30 2022.
Source:Mysteel Global
