Crude steel output across major mills in China averaged 2.05 million mt per day in the first 10 days of May.

An SMM survey showed that 35 steelmakers in China plan to produce a total of 9.34 million mt of hot-rolled coils and plates in May, up 3.1% from the realised output of 9.06 million mt in April.

While production expands, inventory pressure at steel plants continued to reduce on the back of growing consumption, and this may provide upward momentum in near-term steel prices. 

Prices of construction steel rebar will likely stay rangebound in the weeks ahead, underpinned by strong demand from stepped-up operations at construction sites while supply pressure continues to mount. 

SMM data showed that HRC stocks across social warehouses and steelmakers decreased 4.56% in the week ended April 16 to 5.02 million mt, marking a fifth straight week of decline and larger than a 3.59% fall in the previous week.

An SMM survey showed that 35 steelmakers in China plan to produce 9.03 million mt of hot-rolled coils and plates in April, down 0.2% from the realised output of 9.03 million mt in March.

Social inventories of lead ingots in China continued to trend downsides this week, but the decline slowed down from a week ago due to rising supplies of secondary lead.

The US will continue to levy countervailing duties on carbon and certain alloy steel wire rod from China, according to the final determination on the first five-year sunset review on the CVD order by the Department of Commerce released on March 30.

Zinc inventories in China continued to fall over the weekend, propelled by declines in east and north China where downstream consumers were keen to make purchases. SMM data showed that social inventories of refined zinc ingots across Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong and Hebei stood at 304,000 mt as of Monday March 30, down 3,000 mt from Friday March 27 and 20,000 mt from Monday March 23.

JFE, Japan’s second biggest steelmaker, said on Friday that it will close a blast furnace and other facilities at the East Japan Works (Keihin) to optimise its domestic operations. Those facilities are expected to be shut down by FY2023 (ending March 2024), bringing the company’s operating blast furnaces in Japan to seven and reducing its crude steel capacity by around 4 million mt or 13%.