NBS: Steel output at major China steel hubs falls in Mar
Although March is a traditional peak-month for steel consumption in China, the country's steel market overall posted weak performance in the past month, with downstream steel demand recovering at a rather slow pace and steel producers mainly struggling with thin profit margins or even suffering losses.
For example, the profit ratio among the 247 blast-furnace (BF) steel mills Mysteel tracks across China registered just 28.57% by end-March, plunging by 30.3% from the same period last year, according to Mysteel's survey.
Meanwhile, 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 tonnes/day in March, losing a marked 29.2% on year and far below the threshold of 200,000 t/d for the peak season for steel consumption.
Under this circumstance, many steelmakers and industry insiders in China then called for voluntary production curbs by mills to fix market sentiment and reduce losses, which largely resulted in the on-year declines in steel output among the country's major steelmaking hubs last month.
In March, Southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region was the only one that registered an on-year rise in steel output among the top 10 steel hubs, with its production tonnage climbing by 21.1% on year to 4.13 million tonnes.
Part of the reason behind the on-year jump was the fact that one BF operating at Liuzhou Iron & Steel Co, a leading local steelmaker in Guangxi, was offline for an overhaul in March last year, a Guangxi steel market watcher recalled.
Over January-March, crude steel output among China's top 10 steelmaking provinces and autonomous regions amounted to 185.43 million tonnes, lower by 1.6% on year, with five out of the 10 hubs showing on-year rises in steel output and the other five posting drops, the NBS data showed.
Table-1 Mar steel output among China's top 10 steel-producing hubs
Ranking |
Province/Autonomous Region |
Volume (mln t) |
Y-o-Y (%) |
1 |
Hebei |
19.09 |
-3.9 |
2 |
Jiangsu |
10.78 |
-4.2 |
3 |
Shandong |
6.20 |
-5.3 |
4 |
Liaoning |
6.10 |
-15.0 |
5 |
Shanxi |
4.95 |
-20.7 |
6 |
Guangxi |
4.13 |
21.1 |
7 |
Anhui |
3.19 |
-5.6 |
8 |
Hubei |
3.19 |
-8.6 |
9 |
Guangdong |
3.09 |
-9.6 |
10 |
Fujian |
2.86 |
-13.9 |
Total |
|
63.58 |
-6.6 |
Source: NBS
Table-2 Q1 steel output among China's top 10 steel-producing hubs
Ranking |
Province/Autonomous Region |
Volume (mln t) |
Y-o-Y (%) |
1 |
Hebei |
55.44 |
-2.2 |
2 |
Jiangsu |
31.39 |
3.1 |
3 |
Shandong |
18.35 |
-3.7 |
4 |
Liaoning |
17.76 |
-10.3 |
5 |
Shanxi |
14.58 |
-11.8 |
6 |
Guangxi |
11.61 |
22.5 |
7 |
Anhui |
9.34 |
0.4 |
8 |
Guangdong |
9.32 |
2.6 |
9 |
Hubei |
9.1 |
2.5 |
10 |
Fujian |
8.54 |
-5.8 |
Total |
|
185.43 |
-1.6 |
Source: NBS
Written by Carly Chen, chenziyi@mysteel.com
Edited by Alyssa Ren, rentingting@mysteel.com
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