Over January-October, China’s crude steel output headed south from a 2% on-year rise until September, down 0.7% on year to 877.05 million tonnes, and that for October slumped on year for the fourth consecutive month since July, down 23.3% amid the series of ongoing curtailments on iron and steelmaking among Chinese mills, Mysteel Global noted from the data released by the country’s National Bureau of Statistics on November 15.
For October alone, China produced 71.58 million tonnes of crude steel or down 2.9% on month, and the daily crude steel output last month hit the lowest since January 2018, reaching 2.31 million tonnes/day or having slid on month for the sixth straight month by another 6.1%, Mysteel Global calculated based on the NBS data.
Mysteel’s survey matched the NBS data, as its blast furnace capacity utilization among China’s 247 blast-furnace (BF) mills averaged 79.87% in October, down 2.38 percentage points on month, and steelmaking capacity use among China’s 71 electric-arc-furnace (EAF) mills also fell 5.9 percentage points on month to 48.74% on average.
Many Chinese steel mills had still be under the curtailment in iron and steel production with the ongoing restrictive measures or with the ongoing power rationing even though the degree had eased from September. Besides, steel producers in Tangshan of North China’s Hebei, for example, had been faced with frequent emergency curbs on their blast furnace and sintering operations with the latest round imposed over October 27-November 7, Mysteel Global learned.
Over January-October, China’s finished steel output still increased by 2.8% on year to 1.12 billion tonnes, though the pace of growth slowed further from the 4.6% on-year rise for January-September, and the production for October slipped by 14.9% on year to approximately 101.7 million tonnes, according to the NBS data.
China’s domestic steel price softening since around October 12 and lacklustre demand had dampened the mills’ keenness for finished steel production in general, according to Mysteel’s pricing and market tracking, and as of October 29, China’s national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar dropped to Yuan 5,361/tonne ($840/t) including the 13% VAT, or down Yuan 564/t from the end of September.
For October, spot trading volume of construction steel comprising rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among China’s 237 trading houses under Mysteel’s tracking averaged 175,957 t/d, far below the threshold of 200,000 t/d usually for a steel consumption peak month such as October or down 18.6% on month.
Post time: Nov-17-2021