Posted on 16 Aug 2021
Scrap utilization in steelmaking among the 211 Chinese steel mills Mysteel tracks regularly remained largely stable in July at about 26.83% on average per tonnes of raw steel made, nudging down by a tiny 0.01 percentage point on month, according to Mysteel’s latest monthly survey charting scrap consumption among Chinese steelmakers. The survey covers integrated and electric-arc-furnace (EAF) steel producers and those mills using both blast furnace and EAF technologies.
By the end of July, these 211 mills held 5.89 million tonnes of steel scrap in inventory, or lower by 1.73 million tonnes on month, the survey results showed. Their total steel scrap consumption during July also edged down to 17.58 million tonnes, lower by 19,500 tonnes on month.
Among the 211 sampled mills, East China hosts the most with 55 mills, so it also consumed the most scrap last month, totalling 4.58 million tonnes. But East China also displayed the largest on-month decrease which reached 960,000 tonnes. Conversely, mills in other areas such as southern China consumed more scrap last month which offset the large decrease in some extent, Mysteel Global observed from the survey.
The breakdown by steelmaking technology showed that steel scrap utilization among the 130 blast-furnace (BF) steel mills averaged 18.82%, or down 0.64 percentage point on month. Among the 57 EAF mills meanwhile, their scrap use in steel output also decreased by 2.87 percentage points on month to 93.4%.
However, the remaining 24 mills operating both the BFs and EAFs showed a different trend, with their scrap usage in crude steel output assessed at 25.44% or up 1.25 percentage points on month, Mysteel’s survey showed.
This month, Beijing’s orders to lower crude steel output this year, plus the ongoing scrap supply shortages in southern China, may see the domestic steel mills consume less steel scrap in steelmaking, Mysteel predicted.
Source:Mysteel Global
