Posted on 02 Nov 2021
The fall in daily crude steel output among the 247 Chinese blast-furnace and 71 electric-arc-furnace mills under Mysteel's survey resumed during the last eleven days of October after the growth witnessed in the early and mid-October ten-day periods. New data shows that output fell by an average of 52,400 tonnes/day or 2% from the prior ten days to 2.58 million t/d on average, the lowest since late March 2020.
The retreat pointed to the fact that frequent requests from local governments had forced some steel mills to trim their production in late October. Besides, the softening steel prices and lacklustre demand in China also dampened the mills' keenness for production.
This was in line with Mysteel's other survey, which showed that capacity utilization among those 247 BF mills decreased for the second week over October 22-28 to 78.83% on average, down by another 1.22 percentage points on week.
China's finished steel prices continued to fall in late October, due to the thin demand from end-users and the domestic market pessimism. For example, the country's national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar was assessed by Mysteel at Yuan 5,361/tonne ($837/t) including the 13% VAT as of October 29, lower by Yuan 431/t from that on October 20.
October is the traditional peak month for steel consumption in China, especially of long steel products, with the pleasant autumn weather prompting outdoor construction activity. Yet this year, demand from end-users has failed to meet market expectations, Mysteel Global noted.
Over October 21-31, the daily trading volume of construction steel comprising rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among the 237 traders Mysteel follows averaged 164,180 t/d, far below the threshold of 200,000 t/d for the peak consumption season, or down 8,116 t/d or 4.7% from that during the prior ten days.
For the whole month of October, daily crude steel output among the 318 mills under Mysteel's survey averaged 2.6 million t/d, down 111,000 t/d or 4.1% on month and touching a new low since April 2020. Blamed for this were the ongoing power curbs among domestic steel producers last month.
Source:Mysteel Global
