WEEKLY: China's BF utilization rate up to 80.4%
Source: Mysteel
May 18, 2018 14:14
Blast furnace capacity utilization among the 247 Chinese steelmakers which Mysteel regularly surveys nationwide rose 1.28 percentage points on week to 80.4% as of May 17. The rise in furnace operations saw average production of molten iron among these producers grow by 35,600 tonnes/day to 2.25 million t/d, also as of May 17, according to Mysteel’s latest survey published on May 18.
The uptick in blast furnace capacity utilization was largely attributable to the continued production ramp-up of some steel mills in North China over the past week, respondents indicated.
According to the survey, twelve blast furnaces resumed operations over May 12-17 after their scheduled maintenance was completed. Most of the units were located in North China’s Hebei province and their return to service more than offset the production loss from another six blast furnaces that were taken offline during the period for their spell of scheduled maintenance.
Meanwhile, the operation rate of the blast furnaces at these mills edged up by 1.04 percentage point on week to 81.53%, the survey found. Furnaces at some plants at Hebei’s Handan and Chengde restarted, together with others in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in North China, Mysteel found.
Prior to this, operations on those furnaces in Xinjiang were halted temporarily as mills responded to a dip in demand in the region. The cooling of demand there was blamed in part on the recent order from China’s Ministry of Finance (MOF) that many local Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects in Xinjiang be suspended or terminated for progress delays and other failings, as Mysteel reported.
As of Friday, Mysteel’s parallel survey among a smaller group of 163 steel producers nationwide showed their blast furnace capacity utilization rate up by 0.36 percentage point on week to 78.98%.
Written by Victoria Zou, zyongjia@mysteel.com
Edited by Russ McCulloch, russ.mcculloch@mysteel.com
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