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Mild volatility was seen in China’s graphite electrode market over the past week, with Mysteel’s benchmark price for 600mm ultra-high-power (UHP) grade electrode in East China’s Jiangsu province easing by Yuan 2,000/t ($298.8/t) on week to settle at Yuan 54,000/t including the 16% VAT as of March 22. The current price is still some Yuan 77,000/t or about 60% lower than this time last year, according to Mysteel’s data base.
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The city government of Shijiazui, the only production base for silicomanganese (SiMn) in Northwest China’s Ningxia Autonomous Region, has launched intensive checks on the operation of submerged arc furnaces (SAFs) for ferroalloys production, according to an announcement from the city’s Industry and Information Technology Bureau on March 18.
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The Jiexiu authority in North China’s Shanxi province have halted operations of all the local coal mines shortly after a fatal accident at a local mine on March 14 that killed three and injured five, market sources confirmed on March 18.
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The government of Pingluo county in Northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region has asked local silicomanganese (SiMn) producers to permanently shut their open or semi-closed submerged arc furnaces (SAFs) of 20,000 KVA or below by March 20, a government official confirmed on March 13.
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Shandong Shiheng Special Steel Group Co in Tai’an City, East China’s Shandong province has already been granted all the approvals to build four new blast furnaces with each over 1,000 cu m soon in replacement of its existing ironmaking facilities, a company official confirmed on Tuesday.
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Shougang Jingtang United Iron & Steel company, Shougang Group’s key integrated steel works in Tangshan city, North China’s Hebei province, plans to ignite its third 5,500 cu m blast furnace by the end of this month, according to a company official on March 8.
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The capacity utilization among blast furnaces operated by 247 Chinese steel plants nationwide under Mysteel’s weekly survey kept sliding over March 1-7, down another 1.92 percentage points on week to 76.96%, or a new low since January 25, according to Mysteel’s latest survey released on March 8.
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The city government of Tangshan, China’s top steel producing hub in North China's Hebei province, has announced new targets aimed at strengthening air pollution controls for this month, with local steelmakers asked to restrict their sintering activity to help improve the city’s air quality.
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Chinese rebar output climbed for a second straight week during February 21-27 to reach 3.25 million tonnes, up by another 5% or 246,300 tonnes week on week, mainly due to the heft brought to the market by the country’s electric arc furnace steelmakers restarting operations.
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The government of Xuzhou city in East China’s Jiangsu province, is forcing the closure of eight steel mills or pig iron makers by the end of 2019, according to a post published on Jiangsu government website last Thursday.
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The stability seen in Chinese steel scrap prices over the past month is likely to remain in March as scrap consumers struggle with thin margins, market watchers say.
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China’s market for graphite electrodes has been in steady retreat over the past month, with prices sliding further to hit a 19-month low. A market watcher Wednesday attributed the slide mainly to thinning demand from domestic electric-arc-furnace (EAF) steelmakers amid the tepid domestic steel market.
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China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) plans to launch verification checks across China this year to confirm that the government’s achievements over the past few years at eliminating surplus and outdated steel and iron-making capacity are protected, according to Xu Wenli, head of the steel office under MIIT’s iron and steel division.
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China’s largest steel producer China Baowu Steel Group mulls constructing its own overseas manufacturing site as part of the efforts in internationalizing its business and strengthening its capacity in operating international investments and management, according to a sharing on its official wechat account on February 21.
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Shanghai-listed Xining Special Steel, a carbon and specialty steelmaker located in Xining city, Northwest China’s Qinghai province, has received a warning from United Credit Ratings (United Ratings) about the rating presently assigned the steelmaker’s corporate bonds in view of the huge losses Xining generated last year.
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The Indian steel community is divided about the likelihood of the country achieving 300 million tonnes/year of installed steelmaking capacity by 2030-2031, despite the government’s emphasis on the feasibility of the target based on various market research and studies, according to Indian speakers at SteelMint’s 3rd Indian Iron Ore & Pellet Summit on February 18-19 in New Delhi.
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Shanghai-listed Shanxi Coking Company (SCC) has warned that its coke output will decline by about 220,000 tonnes over February 16-March 31 because of emergency production curbs taking effect during the same period to contain air pollution, according to a company notice on February 20. It said the cutbacks were ordered by local authorities of Hongtong county, located in Linfen in North China’s Shanxi province, where its plant is located.
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India’s crude steel production increased by 4.9% on year to 106.5 million tonnes in 2018, surpassing Japan’s output last year and catapulting the South Asian country to the rank of the world’s second largest steel producer after China for the first time, according to the latest statistics of the World Steel Association (WSA).
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China has indicated its plan to accelerate the pace in eliminating all domestic small-scale coal mines with their capacities below 90,000 tonnes/year and those with larger capacities of up to 300,000 t/y but proven to be with high risks of coal and gas outbursts in 2019, Mysteel notes from a post on the country’s National Coal Mine Safety Administration (NCMSA) on January 25.
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China’s domestic rebar output dropped for a second straight week during January 17-23, declining by a large 5.2% or 165,900 tonnes on week to 3.05 million tonnes, according to Mysteel’s weekly production study of 137 integrated long steel producers.
