According to the National Bureau of Statistics of the People’s Republic of China, in April 2024 the volume of steelmaking in the country amounted to 85.94 million tons. This is 7.2% behind the figure for the same month a year ago.
At the same time, the average daily steel production in April increased by 0.6% compared to March to 2.865 million tons. As noted by consulting company Mysteel, a number of steel companies increased output due to improved market conditions and higher prices for steel products.
According to Mysteel, at the end of April, the average utilization rate of blast furnace capacity of 247 Chinese steel mills amounted to 85.53% against 82.76% a month earlier. While in March less than 30% of enterprises had positive profitability, in April this figure slightly exceeded 50%.
A total of 343.7 million tons of steel were melted in China in the first four months of 2024. This is 3.0% less than in the same period last year. According to Mysteel analysts, this gap will widen in May due to the high base effect.
In April, Chinese companies smelted 71.63 million tons of pig iron and produced 116.52 million tons of finished steel (including double counting). This is respectively 8.0 and 1.6% less than in the same month of 2023.On a four-month basis, pig iron production fell 4.3% to 284.99 million tons, while rolled steel production rose 2.9% to 451.03 million tons.