MYSTEEL: Higher cost erodes Chinese BF mills' profitability

More than 40% of Chinese blast-furnace (BF) steel mills have lost money on finished steel sales recently, Mysteel Global learned. This is mainly due to the heftier production costs they're incurring from higher prices of major steelmaking raw materials, coupled with weakening finished steel prices.

As of June 4, about 59.3% of the 247 of the BF mills Mysteel samples reported that they were making a profit on finished steel sales, lower by 3 percentage points from one week earlier or by 4.8 percentage points from the recent high in mid-May, according to Mysteel's