China's Apr iron ore ROM output edges up 0.9% on month
Source: Mysteel
May 22, 2018 13:54
China produced 67.5 million tonnes of iron ore run-of-mine (ROM) during April, representing a slight increase of 0.9% or 583,000 tonnes on month, according to the latest data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics released on May 18.
ROM output in North China’s Hebei province – China’s largest iron ore mining hub – gained 836,000 tonnes or 4% on month to 20.6 million tonnes, accounting for 30.5% of the country’s total. Hebei was the major contributor to the increase of national ROM output, according to the NBS statistics.
The loosening of steel production restrictions for winter on March 15 led China’s iron ore mining sector to begin recovering, a market watcher noted, but added that the frequent emergency capacity curbs for air quality improvement in April – particularly in Hebei – also had a negative impact on ore production.
“The air pollution alerts were very frequent in Hebei’s Tangshan in April and major mines in Qian’an (Tangshan) had to halt immediately when the alerts were released. This had a significant influence on the resumption of local mine operations,” he said.
As for iron ore demand, the resumption of blast furnace operations after China’s winter restrictions has prompted steelmakers to increase feedstock procurement, thus lending some support for ore mining, Mysteel noted.
Over March 29 - April 26, the blast furnace capacity utilization rate at 163 surveyed plants increased by 2.47 percentage points to 75.65%, with the average utilization rate among the 72 plants in Hebei surging by 7.3 percentage points to 61.59%, according to Mysteel’s historical data.
Over the same period, the iron ore processing capacity utilization rate at 266 mines rose 3.6 percentage points on month to 61.5% as of April 26, while the average daily output of iron ore concentrates gained 23,000 tonnes/day or 6% to 397,000 tonnes/day.
As of April 28, the price of 66% Fe iron ore concentrates for pellets in Tangshan dropped 2% or Yuan 15/dmt ($2.3/dmt) on month to Yuan 630/dmt EXW and including the 17% VAT in place at the time.
Edited by Russ McCulloch, russ.mcculloch@mysteel.com
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