Posted on 16 Sep 2025
Hot-rolled coil (HRC) production among the 37 Chinese steelmakers regularly surveyed by Mysteel nationwide recovered during September 4-10 after the previous week’s sharp decline, rising by 3.5% to reach 3.25 million tonnes, Mysteel’s latest survey results showed.
As market sentiment has improved with the arrival of the autumn and its promise of stronger steel sales, so rolling mills across the country have generally reduced maintenance work and shifted to high gear to seize more profits, according to a survey participant.
Over the survey week, both HRC rolling capacity utilization and operational rates among the 37 sampled mills increased a notch, with the former rising by 2.79 percentage points on week to 83.07%, and the latter by 4.69 percentage points on week to 81.25%, Mysteel's survey found.
"Input costs remain relatively high – especially that of iron ore – and this, together with the firm HRC derivative prices, has tempted steelmakers to firm their hot coil offers, anticipating that coil prices will trend higher in the near term," an industry source noted.
On September 12, Mysteel assessed the national price of Q235 4.75mm HRC at Yuan 3,438/tonne ($483/t) including the 13% VAT, edging up by Yuan 6/t on week. The same day, the most-traded HRC contract for January delivery on the Shanghai Futures Exchange ended the daytime session at Yuan 3,364/t, higher by Yuan 24/t or 0.72% from the previous week, the exchange data showed.
"However, as steel end-user demand is being a little slow to recover, the supply-demand imbalance still clouds the market, so any upside for HRC prices is likely to remain limited," the market source warned.
Over the survey week, higher output and lower-than-expected demand led the surveyed mills' stocks to increase by 9,000 tonnes or 1.1% on week to 808,800 tonnes, while the tonnage at the commercial warehouses in the 33 Chinese cities Mysteel tracks was still high at 2.92 million tonnes. This was lower by a small 19,200 tonnes or 0.65% from the previous week, however.
Source:Mysteel Global
