Posted on 16 Jul 2025
China's total crude steel output during this year's January-June half fell by 3% compared with H1 last year to reach 514.8 million tonnes, according to the latest release by the country's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) issued on Tuesday morning.
The size of the on-year fall during the half expanded compared with the decrease of 1.7% recorded for the first five months of this year, mainly due to the plunge in output last month, Mysteel Global noted.
During June, the country's crude steel output fell by 9.2% on year to 83.18 million tonnes, the NBS statistics showed. On a daily basis, crude steel output last month averaged 2.77 million tonnes in June, edging down 0.7% from May, Mysteel Global calculated based on the NBS data.
The results reflected the fact that Chinese steel mills slowed operations to conduct maintenance on their steelmaking facilities, given the weakness in finished steel prices and the poor demand from end-users during summer, as reported.
For example, by the end of June, China's national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar, a bellwether of domestic steel-market sentiment, was assessed by Mysteel at Yuan 3,211/tonne ($448/t) including the 13% VAT, down by Yuan 19/t on month, while that of Q235 4.75mm hot-rolled coil had slipped by Yuan 25/t on month to Yuan 3,231/t including the VAT.
During last month, the daily trading volume of construction steel comprising rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among the 237 trading houses under Mysteel's regular survey averaged 100,392 tonnes/day, lower by 2% from the May average.
But the trend in crude steel output illustrated by the NBS data varies markedly with that the bureau calculated for finished steel, which shows last month's finished steel production actually rose 1.8% on year to 127.8 million tonnes, and total output for January-June increased by 4.6% from H1 last year to 734.4 million tonnes.
China's steel output for January-June 2025
| Jun 2025 | Jan-Jun 2025 | ||
Volume (mln t) | YoY (%) | Volume (mln t) | YoY (%) | |
Crude steel | 83.18 | -9.2 | 514.83 | -3.0 |
Finished steel | 127.84 | 1.8 | 734.38 | 4.6 |
Pig iron | 71.91 | -4.1 | 434.68 | -0.8 |
Source: NBS
Source:Mysteel Global
