The resilience of China's steel manufacturers raised daily production to record, placing the world's leading producer on course for a billion tons of production this year in the midst of a surprising increase in construction and infrastructure demands.
Based on figures by China's statistics officials, crude-steel output first exceeded a daily peak of over 3 million tons in June. Production was 91.58 million tons throughout the month, up 4.5 percent year-over-year, putting six-month output at almost 500 million tons.
As the country highlights indications of an early economic rebound, it is making a very strong case with record output of the essential product. China's production of crude steel reached an all-time monthly peak of 92 million metric tons in May. The rally surpassed the 90 million metric ton-mark for the first time with a 4.3 percent spike.
The breakout volumes in steel production for the May and June made up for a slight reversal during the coronavirus-triggered lockdown period. But based on NBS figures, there has been hardly any slackening this year at all.
Production rose 3.1 percent from a year earlier in the combined January-February period and fell only 1.7 percent in March, closing the quarter with a 1.2-percent gain when China's gross domestic product plunged 6.8 percent.
The pandemic in the first three months of the year had negatively impacted all the industrial sectors with ferrous being no exception, a Beijing-headquartered market analyst noted.
Compared with the slow recovery in some steel-consuming sectors, the analyst said China's steel mills "have been striving to return to normal operation immediately with the loosening of lockdown measures in containing the pandemic across the country," MySteel reported.
Data released by the NBS indicated that auto production, for instance, recovered more slowly, as the industry's capacity utilization rate dropped 10.3 percent on-year to 66 percent by end of June, although the rate was also bigger in the second quarter at 75 percent, or down 1.6 percent on-year but climbed 17 percent on quarter.
Capacity usage rates at blast mills in 247 plants across China topped 92 percent across the whole of May and reached 93 percent in the last week of June, data by MySteel showed.
Earlier this week NBS said that iron ore imports for June rose to their highest level in 33 months despite prices climbing above the $100 per ton level.
Imports of iron ore were up 35 percent to their biggest monthly total since October 2017 of 102 million tonnes. That was up from 87 million tonnes in May.
Meanwhile, Australian exports of iron ore to China from Port Hedland reached a record 46 million tonnes last month, data from the Pilbara Ports Authority showed.
