Last month the producers’ margins on rebar, the most profitable item for the integrated makers, increased by an average of Yuan 154/tonne ($22.4/t) from June to reach Yuan 847/t, according to Mysteel’s latest survey of 91 blast-furnace steel producers nationwide conducted during June 26 and July 25.
Full-month crude steel output in July reached 81.2 million tonnes, according to NBS, jumping by 7.2% on year. The July result also took China’s total crude steel output over January-July to 532.9 million tonnes, higher by a healthy 6.3% on year, according to the NBS database.
In parallel, the country’s finished steel output in July recorded on-year growth of 8% to 95.7 million tonnes. The total finished-steel volume for the first seven months reached 625.9 million tonnes, up 6.6% year on year, according to the latest NBS statistics.
Nevertheless, though the full month total for July remained high, many more Chinese steelmakers last month were obliged to observe output restrictions as more local governments joined the campaign to improve air quality, especially over urban centres, market watchers said. At the same time, ongoing restrictions on the operations of steel mills in North China’s Hebei province and East China’s Jiangsu province deepened, with the inevitable knock-on effect on furnace run rates.
The capacity utilization rate of blast furnaces at the 247 steel plants nationwide which Mysteel regularly canvasses dropped by 1.4 percentage points on month to 79.69% as of August 2, according to Mysteel’s regular survey.
