Posted on 15 Sep 2021
Daily crude steel output among the 247 Chinese blast-furnace (BF) and 71 electric-arc-furnace (EAF) mills under Mysteel’s regular survey continued to move down over September 1-10 to reach 2.81 million tonnes/day on average, the lowest since late February. The average had tumbled by 62,600 t/d or 2.2% from that for the prior eleven days.
The result for early September was also 6.1% lower compared with one year ago, as domestic steel mills took more measures to rein-in their output to comply with local government requests for lower steel production for 2021, Mysteel Global noted.
Mysteel’s other survey among 247 BF mills showed that their BF capacity utilization rate over September 3-9 averaged 84.77%, down 0.68 percentage point on week and refreshing the lowest since the start of July.
Steel demand from end-users showed some recovery earlier this month, as China has entered the traditional peak season for steel consumption thanks to the pleasant weather for outdoor works.
For example, over September 1-10, the daily trading volume of construction steel comprising rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among the 237 trading houses Mysteel samples averaged 222,443 t/d, up another 21,784 t/d or 10.9% from that for late August, according to the latest survey.
Finished steel stocks held by both Chinese mills and traders have emptied faster with the better performance in demand. Total inventories of the five major steel products comprising rebar, wire rod, hot-rolled coil, cold-rolled coil and medium plate among the 184 steel mills under Mysteel’s weekly survey registered a three-month low of 5.95 million tonnes over September 2-8, seeing a sharper decrease of 4.1% on week against the on-week dip of 0.1% over the prior week.
Inventories of the five steel items at the commercial warehouses Mysteel monitors in 132 cities also slipped for the sixth week over September 3-9 to 22.6 million tonnes, down 1.8% on week, as Mysteel Global reported.
Domestic steel prices witnessed significant growth in early September on support of the stricter production curbs and expectations for better demand in the coming term. The national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar under Mysteel’s assessment reached a 3.5-month high of Yuan 5,525/tonne ($855/t) including the 13% VAT as of September 10, jumping Yuan 207/t from that on August 31.
Source:Mysteel Global
