China’s Aug daily crude steel dips 1.1% on month

China’s daily crude steel output continued to slide in August, losing another 1.1% month on month to an average of 2.59 million tonnes/day, Mysteel calculated basing on the latest data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on September 14.
For the whole August, China’s crude steel output was recorded at 80.3 million tonnes, being 1.1% lower than July, but was still 2.7% higher than the corresponding period of 2017, and over January-August, the country’s crude steel output totalled 617.4 million tonnes, up 5.8% on year with the increase being lower than the 6.3% for the first seven months, according to the NBS data.
“The continuous month-on-month drop in daily crude steel output was mainly as a result of the frequent restrictions, long and short, on steel mills amid the environmental protection efforts,” an analyst from Shanghai said, pointing out that the over one-month curbs on the steel mills’ ironmaking facilities in Tangshan, North China’s Hebei province over July 20 - August 31 was a major contributor to the decline.
Mysteel’s related market surveys matched the trends of the official numbers, as Mysteel’s August national average blast furnace capacity utilization rate among the 247 steelmakers fell by 1.5 percentage points to 79.2%, and Mysteel estimated the daily crude steel output among 247 blast-furnace plants and 101 electric-arc-furnace (EAF) steel producers for August to drop 1.5% month on month to 2.29 million t/d.
Last month, China’s finished steel output grew 6.4% on year or 0.7% on month to 96.4 million tonnes, and the volume for the first eight months added up to 725.3 million tonnes, or up 7.1% year on year, according to the latest NBS statistics.