Posted on 12 Oct 2021
Blast furnace capacity utilization among the 247 Chinese steel mills Mysteel regularly surveys showed signs of improvement last week after four weeks of steady decline, the latest survey findings show.
As of October 7, capacity usage among the sampled furnaces had recovered by 1.25 percentage points from the prior survey period to average 79.94%, as some mills that had previously been under restrictions gradually resumed operations in early October, the survey released on October 8 showed.
Over October 1-7, these 247 mills produced an average of 2.14 million tonnes/day of molten iron, also up 33,500 t/d on week, while the operational rate of their blast furnaces also reversed up after four weeks of declines, rising by 4.28 percentage points on week to 77.52%.
During the survey period, some mills in North China's Inner Mongolia, East China's Jiangsu, Anhui and Shandong, and Southwest China's Yunnan resumed production gradually after their local governments had eased power curbs, according to a Shanghai-based market watcher.
Accordingly, over October 1-7, daily consumption of imported iron ore among the 247 surveyed steel mills recovered too from the four prior weeks of decreases, edging up by 41,700 t/d on week to 2.64 million t/d on average.
In tandem, by October 7, inventories of imported ore in all forms at the 247 mills including ore sitting at steelworks, port stockyards and on the water fell by 2.72 million tonnes on week to 101.3 million tonnes. At the present daily consumption rate, this would cover around 38.35 days of the mills’ requirement, or 1.66 days less on week.
Over October 1-7, Mysteel’s smaller-scale study among 163 blast-furnace steel plants nationwide showed that their furnace capacity utilization also recovered from five on-week declines, rising by 1.89 percentage points on week to 64.86%, according to the database.
Source:Mysteel Global
