China: Blast furnace capacity use up for 3rd week to 88.75%

The blast furnace (BF) capacity utilization rate among China's 247 steel mills increased for the third week, up quite substantially by 1.08 percentage points on week to 88.75% over April 16-22, showing that some steel mills had ramped up production to capitalize on rather high profit margins at the time, according to Mysteel's latest survey.

Over the period, these 247 steel mills' daily molten iron output increased by 28,700 tonnes/day on week to 2.36 million t/d in total, and the operational rate of their blast furnaces gained too by 1.3 percentage points on week to 79.43%, according to Mysteel's assessment.

"The recent robust steel demand and high steel margins have strongly encouraged steel mills in regions other than Tangshan to maintain high output, and even some local steel mills in Tangshan had endeavoured to lift their blast furnace capacity utilization slightly over the week," a Shanghai-based market watcher responsible for the survey told Mysteel Global.

Mysteel's related surveys confirmed the rather healthy steel market situation in China, as over April 16-22, spot trading volume of construction steel comprising rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among the country's 237 traders averaged 259,724 t/d, up 6.1% on week.

Inventories of rebar, wire rod, hot-rolled coil, cold-rolled coil and medium plate at the commercial warehouses in 132 Chinese cities, eased for the seventh straight week by another 3.8% to 25.9 million tonnes as of April 22, according to the survey.

By April 22, inventories of imported iron ore at these 247 mills including the volumes at plants, port stockyards and on the water, grew 419,500 tonnes on week to 116.8 million tonnes, though the lasting days of the tonnage shortened by 0.2 day on week to 39.9 days, as their daily consumption increased by 25,100 t/d to 2.93 million t/d on average, Mysteel's tracking showed.

Over the same survey period, Mysteel's smaller-scale study among 163 BF steel plants across China gained 1.76 percentage points on week in their BF capacity utilization to 73.11%.

Written by Lindsey Liu, liulingxian@mysteel.com

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