China's Steel Mills Jump 46% During Holidays

According to the latest weekly survey, inventories of five key finished steel products produced by 184 Chinese steel mills as part of a regular survey by Mysteel surged 46.1% from Feb 4-17. Inventories rose as end-user consumption remained unchanged during Chinese New Year (CNY) February 11-17, while steel mills continued production during hiatus.

The total inventories of five types of products, including rebar, wire rod, hot rolled coil, cold rolled coil and middle plate, at the shipyards of the surveyed plants have grown steadily since the beginning of January and reached 9.9 million tonnes as of February 17. Overall, wire rod and rebar inventories showed the greatest growth, increasing by 79.9% and 51.5% respectively over the study period, the data showed.

China's finished steel production continued to decline after the RMB hiatus as mills increased the maintenance of their production lines, a market source in Shanghai explained. However, output declines were limited as more EAF steels and rolls stopped production during the CNY hiatus, but most blast furnaces (BFs) maintained normal production during this period.