WEEKLY: China's HRC output declines as demand thins further

Production of hot-rolled coils (HRC) among the 37 Chinese steelmakers regularly surveyed by Mysteel declined during December 4-10, pulling back by 1.8% or 56,000 tonnes on week to 3.09 million tonnes, the latest survey results showed.

Although falling raw material prices helped restore the steel mills' profit margins to some extent during the survey week, weakening demand for hot coils led the makers to reduce HRC production to ease the pressure on their sales teams. As a result, the HRC rolling capacity utilization rate among the sampled