WEEKLY: China's coke makers raise run rates to chase profits

The average operating rate of the 230 independent metallurgical coke producers under Mysteel's tracking reached 75.58% during September 4-10, up 2.97 percentage points from the previous week and marking the highest level in more than one and a half years, according to Mysteel's latest survey. Their average output also rose 4.1% on week to 533,000 tonnes/day.

The overall rise was mainly driven by large run-rate jumps among surveyed plants in East China and Central China. According to Mysteel's data, their operating ratios climbed 8.84 percentage points to 84.34% and 7.72 percentage points to 82.14% respectively. Survey respondents explained that coke producers in East China's Shandong province