Many steel mills resumed production as planned, boosting the blast furnace operating rate [SMM blast furnace operating rate]

According to SMM research, on March 20, the blast furnace operating rate was 89.45%, an increase of 0.3% month-on-month. The blast furnace capacity utilization rate was 90.38%, an increase of 0.50% month-on-month. The average daily pig iron production of sample steel plants was 2.16 million tons, an increase of 11,900 tons from the previous month.

During this cycle, 5 blast furnaces were overhauled and 7 blast furnaces resumed production; in the future, with the slow recovery of downstream steel demand, steel sales will pick up. On the cost side, with the sixth round of coke prices decline, steel mill costs will improve significantly, and production enthusiasm may recover.

According to SMM's current tracking, there are no blast furnaces scheduled for maintenance next week, and two blast furnaces are scheduled to resume production. Coupled with the recent rebound in steel prices, blast furnaces previously under maintenance may resume production ahead of schedule. It is expected that the blast furnace operating rate will increase slightly again next week.