China's blast furnace capacity use retreats from 5-week increase

The blast furnace (BF) capacity utilization rate among the 247 Chinese steel mills under Mysteel's regular survey retreated after five weeks of inclines, down 0.91 percentage point on week to 91.2% over July 7-13, yet still hovering at a high level as most mills maintained high production while a few in North and East China launched regular maintenance on their facilities, market sources commented.

Accordingly, the combined hot metal output among these sampled mills averaged 2.44 million tonnes/day over the same period, lower by 24,400 t/d on week, and the operational rate of their BFs also nudged down by 0.15 percentage point on week to 84.33%, according to the survey.

"Some steel mills in North China's Hebei and East China's Shandong have conducted scheduled maintenance works on their furnaces, so the overall BF capacity utilization rate has ebbed," a Shanghai-based market watcher said.

Moreover, some other mills in Northeast China, as well as North China's Shanxi and Tianjin, have also launched their near-term BF facilities maintenance schedules, which may see further declines in the BF capacity use among the 247 mills, Mysteel Global learned from the source.

As a result, lower steel output led the daily consumption of imported iron ore among these sampled steel mills to edge down by 17,700 t/d on week to 2.97 million t/d on average over July 7-13, Mysteel's data showed.

As of July 14, total inventories of imported iron ore in all forms including the volumes at steelworks, port stockyards and on the water held by the same surveyed mills thinned by 1.08 million tonnes on week to 85.22 million tonnes. The total tonnage would be sufficient for 28.7 days of their use, or 0.19 day shorter than the previous survey week.

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.