China's blast furnace capacity use up for 2nd week to 89.93%

The blast furnace (BF) capacity utilization rate among 247 Chinese steel mills under Mysteel's regular survey had risen for the second straight week to 89.93% over May 19-25, inching up by another 0.8 percentage point from the prior week.

During the latest survey period, daily hot metal output among these mills also increased by 21,600 tonnes/day on week to 2.42 million t/d, while their BF operational rate stayed unchanged at 82.36% as of May 25.

Some mills in North China had restarted BFs that finished regular maintenance works during the survey period, while for most steel mills, they had not varied their operations much, as the overall market sentiment remained rather cautious, Mysteel Global noted.

"The resumption of operations among domestic BF mills may not last long, as the lingering rainy and humid weather will further dampen outdoor construction activities, thus weighing on downstream steel demand and steel prices as well," a Shanghai-based market watcher commented.

Over May 19-25, the daily trading volume of rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among 237 trading houses across China under Mysteel's tracking hovered low at 133,838 t/d, down 17.7% on week.

And the national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar, a bellwether of Chinese steel-market sentiment, was assessed by Mysteel at a three-year low of Yuan 3,698/tonne ($56.7/t) including the 13% VAT as of Thursday, down Yuan 140/t on week.

Accordingly, the daily consumption of imported iron ore among these surveyed mills edged up by 28,700 t/d on week to 2.93 million t/d on average over May 19-25, Mysteel's data showed.

As of May 25, the 247 mills' total inventories of imported iron ore in all forms including the volumes at steelworks, port stockyards and on the water decreased by 580,400 tonnes on week to 86.35 million tonnes. The stocks will be sufficient to last them for 29.44 days of use, or 0.49 day shorter than the 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.