Posted on 11 Aug 2026
Hot-rolled coil (HRC) production among the 37 Chinese steelmakers regularly surveyed by Mysteel contracted by 49,300 tonnes or 1.7% on week to 2.88 million tonnes during July 30-August 5, as mills facing low profitability and stubbornly high inventories continued to idle their hot strip mills to reduce losses, Mysteel's latest survey showed.
The average capacity utilization rate for strip mills among the surveyed 37 steelmakers eased by 1.26 percentage points on week to 73.51% during the latest survey period.
However, some mills in North China that had undertaken maintenance work at end-July began resuming HRC production during the survey week, Mysteel Global learned, causing the average operation rate of the surveyed mills to increase by 3.13 percentage points to 78.13%.
Shrinking hot coil output helped trim HRC inventories at steelmakers, with those held by the 37 sampled mills thinning by 15,500 tonnes or 1.9% on week to 786,300 tonnes as of August 6, according to Mysteel's assessment.
Nevertheless, retail HRC inventories across China mounted again during the week, as subdued demand for hot coils amid the summer consumption lull kept stockpiles at trader's warehouses high. On August 6, Mysteel assessed the tonnage piled at the 194 commercial warehouses nationwide up by 60,000 tonnes or 1.3% on week at 4.82 million tonnes. This was also 29% higher on year, Mysteel data show.
On the other hand, after falling for five consecutive working days, China's hot coil prices strengthened during the latter half of last week, mainly due to the sentiment lift provided by improving domestic HRC futures prices.
On August 7, the most-traded HRC contract for October delivery on the Shanghai Futures Exchange closed at Yuan 3,243/tonne ($481/t), higher by Yuan 13/t or 0.4% from the settlement price one week earlier, the bourse's data showed.
On the same day, Mysteel assessed the national spot price of Q235B 4.75mm HRC at Yuan 3,263/t including the 13% VAT, higher by Yuan 15/t from the week's low of Yuan 3,248/t on August 5, but still lower by Yuan 10/t on week.
Source:Mysteel Global
