Posted on 02 Feb 2023
China's daily crude steel output recovered somewhat over the last eleven days of January, with the tonnage rising by 28,700 tonnes/day or 1.1% from mid-January to 2.62 million t/d on average, according to Mysteel's survey among 247 blast-furnace (BF) and 87 electric-arc-furnace (EAF) steel mills nationwide.
The recovery resulted from the fact that some BF mills had increased production in late January after completing maintenance on their steelmaking facilities, Mysteel Global noted. The rise occurred despite most EAF steel producers halting operations during the survey period, given the standstill in the domestic market during the Chinese New Year holiday.
Mysteel's weekly survey showed that over January 20-27, the capacity utilization rate among the 247 Chinese BF steel mills under its tracking had increased for the third week to 84.15%, up another 1.05 percentage points on week and hitting the highest since mid-November 2022, while that among the 87 sampled EAF steel mills slipped further by 1.59 percentage points on week to just 2.9%.
Domestic steel prices have strengthened after the CNY break which ended on January 27, as domestic steel producers have tried to lift their list prices, given the losses they had suffered earlier and their expectations for a recovery in demand in the coming term, Mysteel Global learned.
As of January 31, the national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar, a bellwether of domestic steel-market sentiment, was assessed by Mysteel at Yuan 4,338/tonne ($643/t) including the 13% VAT, higher by Yuan 79/t from that on January 20.
However, transactions in the physical market were limited in late January, as many traders and end-users had yet to return to the market for procurement, Mysteel Global learned.
For the whole month of January, daily crude steel output among the surveyed mills fell again on-month to average 2.6 million t/d, down for the fourth straight month by another 118,300 t/d or 4.4% from the prior month, the survey showed.
Source:Mysteel Global
