WEEKLY: China's HRC output declines for 3rd week

Production of hot-rolled coils (HRC) among the 37 Chinese flat steel producers Mysteel regularly monitors decreased for a third consecutive week over February 27-March 5 to 3.12 million tonnes, down by a larger 115,800 tonnes or 3.6% on week, the results of Mysteel's latest production survey show.

The hot-rolling capacity utilization rate among the sampled mills also eased further by 2.96 percentage points to average 79.59% during the same period, the results indicated. Some steel mills in North and East China had halted hot strip mills to conduct maintenance or slowed their pace of production during the week, resulting in the on-week