WEEKLY SUMMARY: Spot prices of major steelmaking raw mats in China weaken

Despite a slight increase in the seaborne market, China's spot prices for imported iron ore in the portside market dropped last week, and major iron ore futures in Dalian also ended the week lower. For metallurgical coke, the fresh bout of price cuts initiated by domestic steelmakers caused spot coke prices to decline during the same week, though its futures prices logged modest gains.

Production at Chinese blast furnace (BF) steel mills continued falling last week, with more blast furnaces idled for year-end maintenance. The average capacity utilization rate among the 247 BF steelmakers nationwide under Mysteel's regular tracking dropped further during November 28-December 4 to sit at 87.08%, down by 0.9 percentage