China: Blast furnace capacity use up to 85.27%

Over August 19-25, the blast furnace (BF) capacity utilization rate among 247 Chinese steel mills under Mysteel's regular survey had climbed for the fourth week by another 1.39 percentage points on week to 85.27%, as more steelmakers nationwide had resumed operations, Mysteel Global noted.

During the latest survey period, these 247 mills produced a total of 2.29 million tonnes/day of hot metal on average, up 36,200 t/d on week, and their BF operational rate had also edged up for the fourth week by another 2.24 percentage points on week to 80.14% as of August 25.

Both rises had to with the fact that more steel producers across the country had resumed operations, with a total of 13 blast furnaces having been restarted after their previous production cutbacks, a survey conductor commented.

"Though steel demand from end-users has yet to show any significant improvement, some steelmakers still ramped up their production with the anticipation of demand recovery during the traditional peak season for steel consumption over September-October," she explained.

Moreover, some mills had also resumed operations during the survey period with the improvement in their profit margins, Mysteel Global noted.

Accordingly, over August 19-25, the daily consumption of imported iron ore among the 247 surveyed mills increased by 35,900 t/d on week to 2.78 million t/d on average.

As of Thursday, inventories of imported iron ore in all forms at these mills including ore sitting at steelworks, port stockyards and on the water grew by 138,100 tonnes on week to 98.67 million tonnes, as some of them replenished some quantities for near-term production.

The tonnage would be sufficient for around 35.48 days of their use, or 0.38 day shorter than the previous survey period, Mysteel Global noted.

Written by Lindsey Liu, liulingxian@mysteel.com

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