China: Blast furnace capacity use up for 5th week to 84.93%

The blast furnace (BF) capacity utilization rate among 247 Chinese steel mills had increased for the fifth straight week by another 0.6 percentage point on week to 84.93% over February 3-9, as some mills across the country saw higher engagement of their furnaces, according to Mysteel's latest survey.

During the survey period, these 247 BF mills produced 2.29 million tonnes/day of hot metal in total, also up for the fifth week by another 16,200 t/d on week, and their BF operational rate had edged up by 1.01 percentage points on week to 78.42% as of February 9.

Domestic steel demand sees moderate improvement this week, as some end-users have returned to the market after the Lantern Festival (on February 5), encouraging mills in East and North China to continue bringing back some BFs on stream during the survey period, according to a Shanghai-based market watcher.

Consequently, Mysteel's survey found that over February 3-9, the consumption of imported iron ore among these 247 surveyed mills edged up by 12,600 t/d on week to 2.8 million t/d.

By February 9, inventories of imported iron ore sintering fines held by these mills including the volumes at plants, port stockyards and on the water edged up by 524,800 tonnes on week to 92.7 million tonnes.

The total tonnage would be sufficient for 33.1 days of their use, or 0.04 day longer than the previous survey period, according to Mysteel's assessment.

Besides some steelmakers' purchases for replenishment, the recovery in road transport after the Lantern Festival also allowed some iron ore traders to speed up their pace of ore deliveries, which led to the increase in steelmakers' ore inventories at hand, Mysteel Global noted.

Written by Lindsey Liu, liulingxian@mysteel.com

Note: This article has been written in accordance with an article exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and SteelMint.