MYSTEEL: Chinese BF mills' profitability improves slightly

The number of profitable blast-furnace (BF) steel mills in China has recovered recently, mainly thanks to the decline in their production costs and the firm domestic prices of finished steel, Mysteel's latest survey results showed.

On December 25, about 37% of the 247 sampled BF mills reported making a profit on finished steel sales, increasing by 1.3 percentage points from one week before. One major reason for the slight increase in mills earning positive margins was the decrease in prices of major steelmaking raw materials