NBS: China's Q1 crude steel output up 9.9% year on year
The growth was 0.7 percentage point higher than that for the first two months.As for March alone, China’s crude steel output grew 10% on year to 80.3 million tonnes, though the daily steel output up only 2.2% from the 2.54 million tonnes/day for the first two months to 2.59 million t/d.
The faster growth had to do with higher capacity utilization rate among the Chinese electric-arc furnace steelmakers in March, according to Mysteel’s survey among the 53 independent EAF steelmakers across China, with the rate up substantially by 19.84 percentage points on month to 61.05% as of March 28.
In the first quarter, China’s pig iron production growth match that of the crude steel, up 9.3% on year to 194.9 million tonnes, though the growth for March alone lagged behind, up 7.6% on year to 66.2 million tonnes, according to the NBS statistics, which was also lower than the 10% year-on-year growth for January-February, Mysteel Global notes.
The slower March growth in pig iron output was probably due to the intensified curbing among Chinese steel mills’ sintering facilities in the regions such as Tangshan in North China’s Hebei province when they were hit with poor air quality.
Mysteel’s survey on the blast furnace capacity utilization among the 247 Chinese steel producers also indicated a modest decline by 0.57 percent point on month to 78.31% as of March 28.
As for China’s finished steel output, it grew 10.8% for the first quarter to about 269 million tonnes, and the March production grew faster by 11.4% on year to 97.9 million tonnes, according to the official data.
The robust March was within market expectation, as Chinese steel mills have been keen to roll out more finished steel in March when the domestic steel prices such as rebar have been on the gradual strengthening since March and demand has picked up since late March, according to Mysteel’s series of market survey.
Written by Nancy Zheng, zhengmm@mysteel.com
Edited by Hongmei Li, li.hongmei@mysteel.com
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