WEEKLY: Chinese BF mills' production retreats amid widened losses

After a four-week rise, production among China's blast-furnace (BF) steelmakers retreated during the past week, as the meagre steel profit margins or even losses prompted some steel mills to scale back operations at their furnaces, Mysteel's latest survey showed.

The average capacity utilization rate among the 247 BF steelmakers under Mysteel's tracking dropped 0.8 percentage point on week to 90.6% during July 3-9, while their combined hot metal output also fell 0.8% on week to average 2.41 million tonnes/day. Over the same survey period, the average operational rate among