WEEKLY: China BF capacity use up for 2nd week to 87.75%
During the survey period, these 247 sampled mills produced a total of 2.37 million tonnes/day of molten iron on average, also up 31,800 t/d on week, and their blast furnace operational rate also increased by 0.98 percentage point on week to 81.91% as of May 5.
The moderate growth was because some blast furnaces in eastern and northern China had been back on stream after their scheduled maintenance or even ramped up their operations with increasing raw material supplies after the easing transport hold-ups, according to a Shanghai-based market analyst.
Consequently, Mysteel's survey found that a total of nine blast furnaces had resumed operations over April 30-May 5. And the daily consumption of imported iron ore among 247 surveyed mills edged up accordingly by 29,300 t/d on week to 2.91 million t/d as of May 5.
Nevertheless, Mysteel also noted that iron ore trading in the spot market had temporarily ceased during the Labour Day holiday over April 30-May 4.
As a result, inventories of imported iron ore in all forms at the 247 mills including all the volumes at steelworks, port stockyards and on the water, decreased by 3.5 million tonnes on week to 108.5 million tonnes as of May 5.
The total tonnage would be sufficient for 37.31 days of their consumption, or 1.59 days shorter than the previous survey period, according to Mysteel's assessment.
Written by Lindsey Liu, liulingxian@mysteel.com
Edited by Zhenqi Yang, yangzhenqi@mysteel.com
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