China's daily steel output up again in mid-Jan

The continuous growth indicated that some Chinese steel producers, especially BF mills, had resumed operations after completing maintenance or had ramped up production during the survey period, Mysteel Global noted.

The result for mid-January was in line with Mysteel's other survey among the 247 BF mills, which showed that their capacity utilization had increased for the sixth consecutive week to 81.08% over January 14-20, gaining another 1.19 percentage points on week and hitting the highest since late October.

However, more EAF mills in eastern and southern China halted production recently to also undertake annual maintenance, as many mini-mills have lost money due to higher production costs, as Mysteel Global reported.

China's domestic steel market has quietened further of late, as the Chinese New Year holiday over January 31-February 6 is just around the corner, and many traders and end-users have suspended operations and started their holidays early, Mysteel Global learned.

Over January 11-20, the daily trading volume of construction steel comprising rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among the 237 Chinese traders Mysteel follows only averaged 88,689 t/d, lower by a huge 56,784 t/d or 39% from that for early January.

Chinese steel prices continued to grow slowly in mid-January, driven by the better performing futures market, with the national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar under Mysteel's assessment gaining Yuan 51/tonne ($8/t) from ten days earlier to Yuan 4,798/t including the 13% VAT as of January 20.

In parallel, the most most-traded May 2022 rebar contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange closed the daytime trading session at Yuan 4,713/t on January 20, higher by Yuan 214/t from the settlement price on January 10.

Written by Nancy Zheng, zhengmm@mysteel.com
This article has been published under an exchange agreement between MySteel Global and SteelMint.