The average operating rate of BF steel mills was down 0.44 percentage points WoW at 90.94% last week, SMM survey showed. The average capacity utilisation rate stood at 92.53%, up 0.05 percentage points WoW. The daily average pig iron production of sample steel mills was 2.2019 million mt, down 1,100 mt WoW. Last week saw maintenance of 9 BFs and restart of 6 BFs. Stricter environmental protection-related production restrictions in some areas of North China tipped some steel mills into maintenance. In addition, in spite of rising steel prices, steel mills still suffered losses, leading to maintenance of several BFs. In a word, the average operating rate of BF steel mills dipped last week, dragging down pig iron output.
According to SMM tracking, suffering long period of losses, some steel mills stated that they will carry out annual maintenance in advance in the near future. Therefore, a drop in operating rate of BF and pig iron output will linger.
