NBS: China's Q1 crude steel output down 2% on year

China's total crude steel output for the first quarter of this year registered 256.6 million tonnes, falling by 1.9% from the same period last year, according to the latest release by the country's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Tuesday morning.

For March alone, China produced 88.3 million tonnes of crude steel, posting an on-year fall of 7.8%, the NBS data showed. Last month, the country's daily crude steel output averaged 2.85 million tonnes, higher by 1.7% compared with the daily average for the first two months of this year, Mysteel Global calculated based on the NBS data.

Meanwhile, China's finished steel output edged up 0.1% on year to 123.4 million tonnes in March, taking the total production for the first quarter to 336 million tonnes, higher by 4.4% on year, according to the NBS data.

China's steel output for Jan-Mar

	Mar 2024		Jan-Mar 2024
	Volume (mln t)	YoY (%)	Volume (mln t)	YoY (%)
Crude steel	88.27	-7.8	256.55	-1.9
Finished steel	123.37	0.1	336.03	4.4
Pig iron	72.66	-6.9	213.39	-2.9

Source: NBS

Although some electric-arc-furnace (EAF) steel mills in China ramped up production in March, many domestic blast-furnace (BF) mills maintained their output at low levels last month, given their thin profit margins or losses with the persistent weakness in steel prices, Mysteel Global learned.

Mysteel's weekly survey showed that the capacity utilization among the 87 sampled EAF steel mills recovered to 53.06% over March 22-28, up by 23.95 percentage points on month. During the same period, the capacity utilization among the 247 BF mills under Mysteel's tracking slipped by 0.58 percentage point on month to 82.76%.

China's finished steel prices lost ground in March, as demand from end-users failed to meet market expectations during the traditional peak season for steel consumption, Mysteel Global noted.

As of March 29, the national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar, a bellwether of domestic steel-market sentiment, was assessed by Mysteel at Yuan 3,614/tonne ($499/t) including the 13% VAT, sliding by Yuan 369/t from the end of February.

Last month, the daily trading volume of construction steel comprising rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among the 237 Chinese trading houses under Mysteel's regular tracking averaged 121,795 t/d, down 29.2% on year and far below the threshold of 200,000 t/d for the peak season.

Written by Nancy Zheng, zhengmm@mysteel.com

Edited by Alyssa Ren, rentingting@mysteel.com