Posted on 01 Jun 2026
China's rebar production inched up further this week to notch a one-year high. Mysteel's latest survey among the 137 steel mills indicated that their combined output of this long steel item during May 21-27 nudged up marginally by 5,300 tonnes or 0.2% on week to register 2.22 million tonnes, the highest level since the final week of last May.
Both rebar rolling capacity utilization rate and operational rate among these sampled mills stayed flat on week to average 48.6% and 42% during the latest survey week, according to the survey results.
The slight increase in production was mainly attributed to higher rebar output in Liaoning in Northeast China and Shandong in East China, where some steelmakers resumed their rolling mill operations after completing maintenance.
On the demand side however, the recent wave of torrential rainfall across several regions of China has disrupted activity at outdoor construction sites, leading to sluggish spot transactions for construction steel this week, market sources observed.
The daily trading volume of construction steel items comprising rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among the 237 trading houses under Mysteel's coverage thinned further by 3.3% or 3,011 tonnes/day to average 87,290 t/d over May 22-28.
As such, the drawdown of retail rebar inventories slowed, with the tonnage held by traders and stored in commercial warehouses in 35 Chinese cities under Mysteel's tracking moving down by 1.1% or 52,600 tonnes on week to 4.85 million tonnes as of May 28. The destocking pace slowed by 4.4 percentage points from the 5.5% on-week decline recorded over May 15-21.
The sluggish downstream demand also prompted some traders to lower their offering prices in order to facilitate sales, which weighed rebar prices lower this week despite the sentiment lift from the stronger coking coal and coke markets, Mysteel Global noted.
The national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar was assessed by Mysteel at Yuan 3,421/tonne ($505/t) on May 28, down by Yuan 14/t from a week ago.
Source:Mysteel Global
