China's blast-furnace capacity use rises further to 91.03%

The blast furnace (BF) capacity utilization rate among 247 Chinese steel mills under Mysteel's survey had picked up for the second straight week by another 0.98 percentage point on week to reach 91.03% over August 4-10, as several mills in North and Southwest China continued bringing their idled BFs back into operation.

Over the same period, the BF operational rate among these surveyed mills rose to 83.8%, higher by 0.44 percentage point on week, and accordingly their daily hot metal output increased by 26,200 tonnes/day on week to hit 2.44 million t/d, the survey showed.

"The mills in Tangshan in (North China's Hebei) ignited another three BFs this week," a market analyst based in Shanghai said, adding that the BF capacity use in the city has reached a high level and may not rise significantly in the near future.

Steelmakers in Tangshan have been resuming operations on their BFs since the end of July, when local authorities lifted the production restrictions that had been imposed on steel mills to improve the city's air quality last month, Mysteel Global noted.

Meanwhile, at the end of last week, a few steel mills in Southwest China's Sichuan started to bring their idled BFs back online, Mysteel Global learned. The furnaces had been turned off in early July to ensure that sufficient electricity could be supplied for the 31st FISU Summer World University Games hosted by Chengdu over July 28-August 8, as reported.

The uptick in BF production saw the demand for iron ore keep rising among domestic steelmakers, Mysteel's survey showed, as the daily consumption of imported iron ore by the sampled 247 steelmakers had climbed to 2.98 million t/d over August 4-10, up by 30,700 t/d on week.

Under such circumstances, steel mills also replenished more feed materials to meet their immediate production needs. As of August 10, the 247 mills' total inventories of imported iron ore in all forms including the tonnage at their steelworks, port stock yards and on the water mounted to 83.9 million tonnes, higher by 612,700 tonnes on week. The volume could last for 28.17 days of their use, 0.09 day shorter than the prior week, according to Mysteel's assessment.

Written by Anthea Shi, shihui@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.