WEEKLY: China BF capacity use up for 7th week to 81.5%
Accordingly, the mills' daily molten iron output also edged up by 11,500 tonnes/day on week to average 2.19 million t/d in total during the survey period, according to the survey. As of January 27, their BF operational rates had dipped by 1.39 percentage point on week to 74.86%.
"Over the past week, more blast furnaces in East China had resumed production after completing regular maintenance, while some other blast furnaces there continued to ramp up production," a Shanghai-based market analyst said. Together, this led to the further increase in total pig iron output, she explained.
However, many steelmakers in North China's Tangshan are required to observe more curbs on their production from January 28 for the upcoming Winter Olympic Games being held in and around Beijing from early February. Consequently, with some having limited their operations from January 27, the BF operational rates in this area had finally dipped by the end of the survey period, Mysteel Global notes.
The Winter Olympics will be held over February 4-20 in Beijing, in nearby Yanqing, and in Zhangjiakou in North China's Hebei province.
The uptick in steel output meant that these 247 surveyed steelmakers also saw their daily consumption of imported iron ore edge up for the fifth week to average 2.72 million t/d in total, albeit that the on-week increment was only 700 t/d.
As of January 27, inventories of imported ore in all forms at the 247 mills including ore sitting at steelworks, port stockyards and on the water increased for the seventh week by another 470,200 tonnes to 117.6 million tonnes. This reflected the steelmakers' iron ore stocks accumulation to maintain steady output currently and to meet their needs during the upcoming Chinese New Year holiday (over January 31-February 6), Mysteel Global noted.
The total tonnage would be sufficient for some 43.24 days of consumption by these 247 steel producers, or 0.17 day more on week, according to Mysteel's assessment.
Written by Victoria Zou, zyongjia@mysteel.com
Edited by Zhenqi Yang, yangzhen@mysteel.com
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