China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced on July 15 that the country's pig iron, crude steel, and finished steel outputs for the January–June period of this year were 435.62 million metric tonnes (MMT), 530.57 million mt, and 701.02 MMT, respectively. These figures represented decreases of 3.6%, 1.1%, and 2.8% year over year. The reduction in crude steel production was less than the 1.4% decline observed from January to May. This indicates that, while specific mills were forced to reduce production due to deteriorating margins, overall production cuts in China were noticeable only at the start of this year, and the reduction rate has subsequently slowed.

 

In June alone, China’s outputs of pig iron, crude steel and finished steel totalled 74.49 MMT, 91.61 MMT and 125.55 MMT, decreasing by 3.3%, increasing by 0.2% and 3.2% year on year. Compared to May, crude steel production in China decreased by 1.3%. “We didn’t cut production much [in July] as costs are depend on it, but some smaller BF mills did, this is offseason so some decline in production is normal,” a Chinese mill commented.

 

In late June (June 21-30) this year, the average aggregate daily crude steel output of large and medium-sized steel enterprises in China all CISA members totalled 2.1676 MMT, down 0.8% compared to mid-June (June 11-20) this year. The high temperature in the traditional offseason will slacken the demand for steel and weaken steel prices in July.