China's blast furnace capacity use dips further to 89.23%

The blast furnace (BF) capacity utilization rate among 247 Chinese steel producers under Mysteel's survey had slid for the second straight week by another 1 percentage point on week to reach 89.23% during November 3-9, mainly due to the maintenance stoppages that had started last week among steelmakers in North and South China, Mysteel Global noted.

"Many mills shut their BFs for maintenance late last week, so the reduction in their hot metal output was not observed until in the latest survey period," a market watcher in Shanghai explained.

Over November 3-9, daily hot metal output among the sampled 247 mills averaged 2.39 million tonnes/day, lower by 26,800 t/d or 1.1% on week. Accordingly, the daily average consumption of imported iron ore by these mills also decreased by 33,200 t/d or 1.1% on week to 2.9 million t/d.

However, during the same period, the average operational rate among the 247 steelmakers reversed from the prior week's drop by 0.89 percentage point on week to reach 81.01%, as a total of 12 furnaces in North and East China had been brought back online after maintenance this week.

Meanwhile, in North China's Tangshan, "some mills had postponed their maintenance work after seeing the rebound in finished steel prices," the market watcher added. "As such, the hot metal output in Tangshan is likely to increase next week," she believed.

Mysteel's other survey showed that among the 247 steel producers, around 21% had managed to earn some profits during November 3-9, higher by 5 percentage points on week.

Chinese steelmakers generally continued procuring iron ore to meet their immediate production needs, Mysteel Global learned.

By November 9, total imported iron ore stocks held by these 247 steelmakers stood at 90.1 million tonnes, up by just 0.2% on week, which is sufficient for 30.95 days of their use, longer by 0.4 day than in the previous period, Mysteel assessed.

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