Iron ore price, page-50273

Chinese steel production up 11.5% yoy in July. Not sure why the article places emphasis on a tiny mom fall. Not relevant to analysis of stats and July generally has lower production being outside of peak season.


https://www.reuters.com/markets/com...r-month-regional-production-curbs-2023-08-15/
Chinas July crude steel output eases on production curbs
Reuters
August 15, 20232:36 PM GMT+10Updated a day ago

• .

• July output up 11.5% y/y, but down 0.34% m/m
• Daily average output in July up 11.5% y/y, down 3.56% m/m
• January-July output up 2.5% y/y

BEIJING, Aug 15 (Reuters) - China's crude steel output in July eased 0.34% from a month ago, the statistics bureau said on Tuesday, because of production restrictions in Tangshan city in northern China and Sichuan province in the southwest.

The world's largest steel producer manufactured 90.8 million metric tons of the ferrous metal last month, down from 91.11 million tons in June but up 11.5% from the same month in 2022, when steel mills cut production amid shrinking margins as property sector woes stifled demand.

Average daily steel output in July came in at about 2.93 million tons, down 3.6% from 3.04 million tons in June but up from 2.63 million tons in July 2022, according to Reuters calculations based on NBS data.

The month-on-month decline in steel output was mainly because of production restrictions in Tangshan, with output there clearly contracting from July 20, said Cai Yongzheng, a Nanjing-based director of Jiangsu Fushi Data Research Institute.


Tangshan, China's top steelmaking hub, intensified its production controls in late July by requiring some mills to suspend operation of at least one blast furnace until the end of July, cutting about 488,200 tons of hot metal output from blast furnaces, consultancy Mysteel said in a report.

This came after Tangshan city had asked local mills to cut their sintering production by between 30% and 50% in July to improve local air quality.

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Also, a number of steel mills in southwest China's Sichuan province scaled down production to ensure normal power supply during the holding of the FISU Summer World University Games over July 28-Aug. 8 in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan.

Some electric-arc-furnace (EAF) steel mills also cut production in July due to losses from rising production costs as steel scrap prices hovered at high levels amid tight supply, and from higher electricity tariffs in some regions because of extreme temperatures last month, Jiangsu Fushi's Cai said.