Posted on 11 Nov 2025
After ticking up for two weeks, hot-rolled coil (HRC) production among the 37 Chinese steelmakers regularly surveyed by Mysteel fell slightly during October 30-November 5, easing by 1.67% to sit at 3.18 million tonnes, the results of Mysteel’s latest survey showed.
During the latest survey week, the HRC rolling capacity utilization rate among these sampled mills dropped by 1.38 percentage point on week to stand at 81.28%, while the operational rate also decreased by 1.56 percentage point to 78.13%, the survey results indicated.
Shrinking profit margins for steel mills on their sales of the coils, plus production cuts in Tangshan in North China's Hebei province as an air pollution abatement measure, caused HRC output to dip last week. However, as the profit margins the mills could earn on the flat steel were still higher than those of long steel items, the integrated mills and coil re-rollers are unlikely to make large cuts in their HRC output in the near term, as reported.
The relatively steady HRC supply, coupled with weakening demand this month as the market enters the winter off-season for steel consumption, led coil inventories held by traders to mount further last week.
By November 6, HRC stocks at the 194 commercial warehouses in the 55 Chinese cities Mysteel monitors had edged slightly higher by 0.67% or 30,000 tonnes on week to 4.49 million tonnes. Stocks sitting at steel mills fell by a tiny 0.3% or 2,300 tonnes on week to 774,300 tonnes, though.
Meanwhile, Mysteel assessed the national price of Q235 4.75mm HRC at Yuan 3,310/tonne ($465/t) including the 13% VAT last Friday, down by Yuan 55/t or 1.6% on week.
The same day, the most-traded HRC contract for January delivery on the Shanghai Futures Exchange ended the daytime trading session at Yuan 3,245/t, lower by Yuan 63/t or 1.9% from the settlement price a week earlier, the bourse's data showed.
Source:Mysteel Global
