WEEKLY: China's HRC output dips, prices tick up

Hot-rolled coil (HRC) production among the 37 Chinese steelmakers regularly surveyed by Mysteel declined by 46,000 tonnes or 1.5% on week during April 30-May 6 to 3.01 million tonnes, mainly because an East China-based steel mill had slowed operations for maintenance last week, the findings of Mysteel’s survey show.

During the survey week, the capacity utilization rate of the hot strip mills operated by the 37 sampled mills decreased 1.17 percentage points to 76.8%, while their average operation rate also fell by 1.56 percentage points to 78.13%. Most of the survey week coincided with China's Labor Day holiday over May 1-5 when traders and end-buyers