Posted on 22 Dec 2025
After dropping for three consecutive weeks and approaching the intra-year low in the previous week, rebar output among the 137 Chinese steel mills increased to 1.82 million tonnes over December 11-17, up by 1.6% or 29,000 tonnes on week due to mills' improved profit margins on producing this long steel item, according to Mysteel's latest weekly survey.
The production recovery was in line with the findings in Mysteel's other survey on rebar rolling capacity utilization and operational status of these sampled steel mills, with their average capacity use rate edging up by 0.6 percentage point on week to 39.8%, while the operation rate also climbed by 2 percentage points on week to an average of 39%.
The main drivers behind the output rebound were that some steel mills across China resumed operations after completing maintenance work and some others opted to allocate more hot metal to rebar rolling lines in a bid to maintain profits. Specifically, steel mills in North China's Shanxi and Hebei provinces contributed the most to the rebar production rise, according to the survey results.
Rebar inventories continued to move lower in the past week, as trading activity in the physical market also witnessed a mild recovery amid upbeat sentiment, Mysteel Global noted. China's apparent consumption of rebar in all markets stood at 2.08 million tonnes over December 12-18, up by 2.7% or 5,5500 tonnes on week, Mysteel's assessment showed.
Rebar stocks held by traders in commercial warehouses in the 35 Chinese cities Mysteel regularly monitors thinned further by 7.6% or 257,000 tonnes on week to sit at 3.13 million tonnes as of December 18, with the pace speeding up by 1.4 percentage points from the prior week's 6.2% fall, Mysteel's weekly survey showed.
On the other hand, spiking futures prices of steelmaking raw materials lately also buoyed market sentiment for finished steel and underpinned spot rebar prices to some extent, Mysteel's weekly roundup pointed out.
Prices of the main contracts of coke and coking coal on the Dalian Commodity Exchange by Thursday surged 5.39% and 6.02% respectively from their settlement prices one week before, the bourse's statistics showed.
In tandem, the price of the most-traded rebar futures contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange also rose by 1.23% from a week ago to close the daytime trading session at Yuan 3,125/tonne ($444/t) on Thursday.
In the spot market, the national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar was assessed by Mysteel at Yuan 3,324/t including the 13% VAT by Thursday, higher by Yuan 27/t from a week prior.
Source:Mysteel
