In October this year, China’s outputs of pig iron, crude steel and finished steel totaled 65.55 million mt, 72.0 million mt and 118.64 million mt, decreasing by 7.9 percent, 12.1 percent and 0.9 percent year on year, while down 0.76 percent, 2.0 percent and 4.5 percent month on month, respectively, as announced by China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). Though usually October is one of the strong months in terms of consumption, this year production results in October were the weakest since 2021, when the market was hit by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Monthly crude steel production fell below the 80 million mt mark again in October, as it had in July - for the first time this year - and in August and September, while production was down 2.0 percent compared to September. Major cities in Hebei Province cut production significantly on October 27-31 due to a level II emergency response to alleviate pollution. Demand for steel in October was slacker than expected, while the National Day holiday (October 1-8) also had a negative impact.
In the January-October period this year, China’s outputs of pig iron, crude steel and finished steel totaled 711.37 million mt, 817.87 million mt and 1.21759 billion mt, decreasing by 1.8 percent, declining by 3.9 percent, and increasing by 4.7 percent year on year, respectively.
The China Iron and Steel Association (CISA) has announced that in early November (November 1-10) this year the average aggregate daily crude steel output of large and medium-sized steel enterprises in China - all CISA members - totaled 1.926 million mt, up 6.0 percent compared to late October (October 21-31).
