In August this year, China’s outputs of pig iron, crude steel and finished steel totaled 68.14 million mt, 77.92 million mt and 110.90 million mt, decreasing by 8.8 percent, 10.4 percent and 6.5 percent year on year, while declining by 4.57 percent, 6.05 percent and 3.03 percent month on month, respectively, as announced by China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The decrease in crude steel production was fairly significant following the big month-on-month decrease of 9.46 percent recorded in July, amid slack demand from downstream users and decreasing steel prices.
In the January-August period this year, China’s outputs of pig iron, crude steel and finished steel totaled 577.7 million mt, 691.41 million mt and 925.73 million mt, decreasing by 4.3 percent, decreasing by 3.3 percent, and increasing by 0.4 percent year on year, respectively. The decline in crude steel production was 1.1 percentage points faster than the 2.2 percent decrease seen in the January-July period.
The crude steel production declines in July and August have failed to help the market, which has been suffering from poor domestic steel demand due to the real estate crisis in China, and sources are awaiting more fundamental changes in order to see a change in the market situation. The halting of China’s capacity replacement program will be not enough to help the market in the short term.
In early September (September 1-10) this year, the average aggregate daily crude steel output of large and medium-sized steel enterprises in China - all CISA members - totaled 1.936 million mt, up 2.7 percent compared to late August (August 21-31) this year, following the big decline of 5.24 percent recorded in late August compared to mid-August.
Total steel production in September is expected to increase as the market enters the traditional peak season for business, though more time is needed to observe the release of demand from downstream users as total real estate investments in China still indicated a big decline of 10.2 percent year on year in the January-August period.