China's blast furnace capacity utilization falls

This decline was at a faster pace, down 1.31 percentage points from the previous week. As a result, the daily average output of hot metal among these mills fell by 1.4% to 2.42 million tonnes per day.

During this survey period, maintenance work led to the shutdown of 10 blast furnaces, with a total capacity larger than the 11 furnaces that were brought back online. Consequently, domestic hot metal output decreased, although the operational rate among the surveyed mills rebounded slightly to reach 82.34%.

The decrease in output was attributed to production cuts, especially in North and Northeast China, where steelmakers faced widening losses on steel sales. Less than 20% of the surveyed steelmakers were able to enjoy healthy profits during this period.

As a result of production cuts, the daily consumption of imported iron ore among these surveyed mills averaged 2.96 million tonnes per day during October 13-19, which was 535,000 tonnes per day lower or 1.8% less compared to the previous week. This situation was partly influenced by some mills in North China's Hebei province operating at reduced levels to ease air pollution in compliance with local government regulations.