WEEKLY: China's HRC output shrinks further, prices still soft

Hot-rolled coil (HRC) production among the 37 Chinese steelmakers regularly surveyed by Mysteel contracted by 49,300 tonnes or 1.7% on week to 2.88 million tonnes during July 30-August 5, as mills facing low profitability and stubbornly high inventories continued to idle their hot strip mills to reduce losses, Mysteel's latest survey showed.

The average capacity utilization rate for strip mills among the surveyed 37 steelmakers eased by 1.26 percentage points on week to 73.51% during the latest survey period. However, some mills in North China that had undertaken maintenance work at end-July began resuming HRC production during the survey week, Mysteel Global learned, causing the average operation rate of the surveyed