A slowdown in maintenance and restart cooled the growth rate of the operating rate of BF steel mills, operating rate of EFs nosedived amid shutdown of more than 60% of EF steel mills  

On January 31, the operating rate of BF steel mills was 88.55%, up 0.15 percentage points WoW, SMM survey showed. There was maintenance of significantly fewer BFs, but steel mills’ profit erosions amid ore price gain may feed into maintenance of more BFs. Therefore, the increase in pig iron output this week may be less than expected.
According to SMM survey of 50 EF steel mills that mainly produce construction steel, their operating rates averaged 22.56%, as of January 30. Looking forward, according to SMM research, EF steel mills in China may remain shut from this week to February 29.