Posted on 08 Feb 2022
Daily crude steel production among the 247 Chinese blast-furnace and 71 electric-arc-furnace steel mills under Mysteel's survey reversed down over the last eleven days of January, falling by 22,800 tonnes/day or 0.9% from that for mid-January to average 2.5 million t/d. Prior to this, the daily output figure had been rising continuously for one month.
But the decrease was not surprising as many Chinese steel mills, especially EAF steelmakers, had conducted maintenance or halted operations when the domestic market quietened gradually ahead of the Chinese New Year (CNY) holiday beginning January 31, Mysteel Global noted. Most BF steel mills had maintained normal production in late January, however.
For example, over January 21-27 capacity utilization among the 71 EAF mills under Mysteel's regular survey had slipped for the fourth consecutive week to just 10.05%, plunging by 15.47 percentage points on week and marking the lowest since late February 2021.
Chinese domestic steel prices kept climbing in late January, thanks to the relatively lower supply and expectations for a recovery in demand after the CNY break. Transactions in the physical market were scarce, though, as most traders and end-users had left the market to celebrate the festival early.
Mysteel's other survey showed that total inventories of the five major carbon steel products comprising rebar, wire rod, hot-rolled coil, cold-rolled coil and medium plate at the 184 Chinese steel mills under the survey reached 4.36 million tonnes as of January 26, up 2.7% on week but down by 30.7% compared with one year earlier. This also boosted market sentiment to some extent.
As of January 30, China's national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar was assessed by Mysteel at Yuan 4,817/tonne ($758/t) including the 13% VAT, higher by Yuan 19/t from ten days earlier.
Source:Mysteel Global
