[Blast furnace operating rate] Steel mill profits improved and blast furnace operating rate rose again

The average operating rate of blast furnaces at steel mills rose 0.3 percentage point from a week ago to 90.35% as of April 10, SMM survey showed. The average capacity utilisation rate stood at 91.34%, up 0.17 percentage point WoW. The daily average hot metal output of the steel mills in SMM’s survey sample stood at 2.1833 million mt last week, an increase of 4,200 mt from the previous week.

Figure 1: Blast furnace operating rates and capacity utilisation rate

Data source: SMM

Figure 2: Resumption of blast furnaces/maintenance of blast furnaces

Data source: SMM

Figure 3: Pig iron output forecast

Data source: SMM

During this period, one blast furnace was overhauled and three blast furnaces resumed production; the eighth round of price reductions for coke took effect, steel mill profits improved again, and steel mill maintenance slowed down significantly; most of the blast furnaces that were overhauled earlier resumed production as planned, but the production resumption of some blast furnaces in north China delayed due to weak demand, and the increase in pig iron was lower than expected.

Looking at the next cycle, some blast furnaces will resume production, and the output of pig iron will continue to increase. However, considering that the current terminal demand for steel has not improved significantly, the increase in pig iron may be lower than expected.

Operating rates of 242 blast furnace were released!