Posted on 11 Oct 2021
Daily crude steel output among China’s 247 Chinese blast-furnace (BF) and 71 electric-arc-furnace (EAF) mills under Mysteel’s survey declined further over September 21-30 to its 18-month low of 2.59 million tonnes/day on average, or falling another 153,300 t/d or 5.6% in ten days with intensified curbing with the ongoing restrictive measures and power rationing in many regions of the country.
Steel mills in regions such as North China's Inner Mongolia, East China's Shandong and Jiangsu, and Southeast China's Fujian had been forced to slow down their production pace or even halt operations in late September with local power rationing on power-intensive enterprises, as reported.
Chinese mills' iron and steelmaking capacity utilization fell substantially too over September 24-30, according to Msyteel’s survey, showing that the 247 BF mills posted an on-week drop of 3.41 percentage points to a two-year low of 78.69%, and the 71 EAF mills saw their steelmaking capacity utilization rate fall to a seven-month low of 44.13%, or down 9.34 percentage points on week.
For the whole month of September, daily crude steel output among the 318 mills hit a new low since April 2020, averaging 2.71 million t/d, or down 203,400 t/d or 7% on month, according to Mysteel’s data.
In the last ten days of September, spot trading volume of construction steel comprising rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among China’s 237 trading houses under Mysteel’s tracking, however, recovered 21,238 tonnes/day or 10.6% in ten days to 221,849 t/d on average, as some traders and end-users had replenished some volume ahead of the long National Day holiday over October 1-7.
Lower output while better demand saw China’s national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar under Mysteel's assessment touched the highest since May 17 as of September 30, reaching Yuan 5,925/tonne ($920/t) including the 13% VAT, or up Yuan 257/t from September 18.
Source:Mysteel Global
