China blast furnace capacity use largely steady at 91.16%

The blast furnace (BF) capacity utilization rate among the 247 Chinese steel mills under Mysteel's weekly survey remained largely stable at 91.16% over July 14-20, or dipping for the second week by a tiny 0.04 percentage point on week, indicating steady operations of most integrated steelmakers in the country.

Over the survey period, these sampled mills produced around 2.44 million tonnes/day of hot metal in total, down by a marginal 1,100 t/d on week, while their BF operational rate dipped by 0.73 percentage point on week to sit at 83.6% as of July 20.

"Some steel mills in North and East China carried out maintenance on their BFs over the surveyed week. However, some other BF mills also resumed operations after completing the maintenance works this week, in response to better steel sales for downstream customers and rising steel prices recently. So, the overall satiation is balanced," a Shanghai-based market watcher observed.

For example, the daily trading volume of construction steel comprising rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among 237 Chinese traders under Mysteel's regular survey increased by 6.7% on week to average 156,132 t/d over July 14-20.

Also by July 20, China's national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar edged up by Yuan 19/tonne ($2.7/t) on week to Yuan 3,832/t and including the 13% VAT, the data showed.

Accordingly, the daily consumption of imported iron ore among these mills edged down by 2,800 t/d on week to 2.97 million t/d on average over July 14-20, Mysteel's data showed.

As of July 20, these 247 steel mills' total inventories of imported iron ore in all forms including the volumes at steelworks, port stockyards and on the water had decreased by 1.2 million tonnes on week to hit 84.02 million tonnes. The stocks will be sufficient to last the mills for 28.27 days of use, or 0.43 day shorter than the previous survey period.

Written by Lindsey Liu, liulingxian@mysteel.com

Edited by Alyssa Ren, rentingting@mysteel.com

This article has been published under an article exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and SteelMint.