Steel mills cut production to keep prices down

Steel mills in China, South Korea, India and Taiwan have spontaneously cut production for maintenance purposes. It remained unclear whether production cuts would stabilize prices.

Due to the lockdown, demand for steel in Asia has dropped to a minimum, so prices are falling. Even the epidemic affects demand, metallurgical plants do not want to reduce prices. For this reason, steel mills in many countries have been passively or spontaneously reducing production.

The Chinese government previously announced that steel production in 2021 would not exceed steel production in 2020, and it was estimated that steel production would decline by 60 million tonnes from July to December.

In South Korea, a large local steel mill was expected to undertake maintenance and shutdown for 14 days in mid-October. Another steel mill will carry out a two-week maintenance of the rolling mill in mid-October, mainly cutting back on hot rolled steel production.

In September, a steel mill in Taiwan will carry out a three-week maintenance of its rolling equipment.

In India, local JSW Steel is currently performing hot rolling mill maintenance at its Vijayanagar plant. The total service time is 55 days.