Posted on 20 Jul 2026
China's rebar production declined again on week over July 9-15, with the combined weekly output of the bars among the 137 domestic steel mills under Mysteel's coverage dropping by 4% or 83,200 tonnes to 1.97 million tonnes, Mysteel's latest survey showed.
Similarly, the rebar rolling capacity utilization rate among the sampled mills averaged 43.2% during the same period, sliding by 1.8 percentage points on week, while the average run rate had also slipped by 1 percentage point on week to 39%, another Mysteel survey showed.
Worsening profits on rebar sales and limited cashflow for maintaining production had led more mills to schedule maintenance stoppages, Mysteel noted in its weekly report, blaming this partly for the production decline.
Dropping output also translated into easing inventory pressure for both steelmakers and traders, Mysteel Global noted.
Rebar inventories held by the 137 steel mills as of July 16 reached 1.93 million tonnes, edging down by 0.9% or 17,500 tonnes on week. Meanwhile, the tonnage of reinforcing bars in commercial warehouses in the 35 Chinese cities Mysteel follows totaled around 5 million tonnes as of the same day, dropping by 1.2% or 58,500 tonnes on week.
Super Typhoon Bavi, which made landfall in East China's Zhejiang province last Saturday, had brought torrential downpours, severe flooding and strong winds to large areas of East China and North China, as reported. As a result, work on many outdoor construction projects in the influenced regions was forced to be suspended, while local logistics were also heavily disrupted.
This has significantly impacted demand for long steel items including rebar, with the combined tonnage of rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil traded among the 237 Chinese trading houses under Mysteel's survey averaging 82,077 tonnes/day over July 10-16, down by 9.5% or 8,586 t/d on week.
However, the signs of recovering market fundamentals reflected in the thinning inventories had led rebar prices to stay largely steady over the week, with Mysteel assessing the national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar at Yuan 3,291/tonne ($486/t) on July 16, up by a small Yuan 1/t on week.
Source:Mysteel Global
