China's blast furnace capacity use largely stable at 84.32%

The blast furnace capacity utilization rate among 247 steel mills across China surveyed by Mysteel remained largely stable at 84.32% as of February 2, or up by a small 0.18 percentage point from January 27, as more steel mills resumed operations after the Chinese New Year (CNY) break, according to Mysteel's latest survey.

Over January 28-February 2, these mills' hot metal output edged up accordingly by 4,700 tonnes/day on week to 2.27 million t/d, and the operational rate of their blast furnaces nudged up too by 0.72 percentage point on week to 77.41% as of February 2.

"In the week following the CNY break, more Chinese steel mills resumed normal operations after annual maintenance works, or ramped up their production," a Shanghai-based market watcher observed.

Nonetheless, market sentiment turned cautious recently, as some market participants were concerned about the recovery of steel demand amid the softening finished steel prices, Mysteel Global noted.

For example, China's national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar had decreased for the second day by Yuan 23/tonne ($3.4/t) from January 31 to Yuan 4,315/t and including the 13% VAT as of Thursday, according to Mysteel's assessment.

Also, over the same survey period, the daily consumption of imported iron ore among the 247 surveyed mills increased by 6,400 t/d on week to 2.79 million t/d on average, Mysteel data showed.

By February 2, total inventories of imported iron ore in all forms including the volumes at steelworks, port stockyards and on the water held by these 247 mills decreased by 80,200 tonnes on week to 92.2 million tonnes.

The tonnage will be sufficient to last the surveyed mills for 33.06 days of use, or 0.11 day shorter than that of Mysteel's previous survey period.

Written by Lindsey Liu, liulingxian@mysteel.com

Edited by Alyssa Ren, rentingting@mysteel.com

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