China's rebar output falls further, but pace slows

Rebar production among the 137 Chinese steelmakers tracked by Mysteel nationwide fell for the fifth consecutive week during May 11-17 to reach 2.67 million tonnes, though the pace of decline slowed to a small 0.5% or 14,100 tonnes on week, the latest survey data show. During the prior week, production among the sampled mills had slid by 1.8%.

Rebar output during the survey week among steel mills in East China's Jiangsu, North China's Hebei and Central China's Hunan provinces dropped significantly on week. However, this fall was moderately offset by rising production among mills based in North China's Shanxi and Southwest China's Guizhou and Guangxi provinces, according to survey respondents.

Over the period, rebar rolling capacity utilization among the surveyed producers dipped for a fifth week, down 0.3 percentage point on week to average 58.5%, while the operational rate of the rolling mills at the surveyed makers had recovered 0.7 percentage point on week at 46.2%, Mysteel's data showed.

China's spot rebar prices have shown signs of improvement recently after the persistent falls since April, with the country's national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar, for example, rising for four successive working days this week to reach Yuan 3,838/tonne ($545/t) including the 13% VAT as of May 18, or higher by Yuan 26/t on week, according to Mysteel's assessment.

Spot trading volume of construction steel including rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among the 237 Chinese steel trading houses under Mysteel's tracking slid by 5.6% on week to 162,595 tonnes/day on average over May 12-18, indicating that demand from end-users remains slack for the time being.

On the other hand, lower output saw rebar inventories at the 137 surveyed producers thin for the second week, declining by 5.1% or 123,600 tonnes on week to 2.3 million tonnes as of May 17, the survey showed.

Meanwhile, the tonnage at commercial warehouses in the 35 Chinese cities Mysteel follows marked a 12-week decline, dropping by 4.7% or 316,500 tonnes on week to 6.4 million tonnes as of May 18, both nearing four-month lows.

Written by Rong Zhang, zhangronga@mysteel.com

Edited by Zhenqi Yang, yangzhenqi@mysteel.com

Table 1: Rebar Production Survey by Region by May 17

Table 2: Wire Rod Production Survey by Region by May 17

Table 3: Rebar Production Survey by Process by May 17

Table 4: Wire Rod Production Survey by Process by May 17

Table 5: Mills' Rebar and Wire Rod Stocks by Region by May 17

Table 6: Rebar and Wire Rod Stocks Survey by Process by May 17

This article has been published under an article exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and SteelMint.