"Mills in these regions have faced great financial pressure due to high steel inventories," said Connie Zhang, steel analyst at consultancy SMM.
More than 30 steel mills have issued plans for maintenance as of Tuesday, according to Mysteel.
Another 15 blast furnaces across China went into maintenance as of Monday, reducing hot metal output in April by 615,900 tonnes, SMM said in its latest report.
It's worth observing whether other steelmakers in North,
East and South China will follow suit later, Xu Xiangchun,
director of content at Mysteel said.
"We learned that a few mills suffering losses indeed have
the intention to start maintenance, but we do not think the
scope of production cuts will continue to enlarge in the long
run and it won't last long either," SMM's Zhang added.
Electric-arc-furnace (EAF)-based steelmakers in South
China's Guangdong, East China's Zhejiang and Southwest China's
Sichuan scaled back production last week after suffering severe
losses, Mysteel said.
Analysts, however, played down the impact of production
cuts by these EAF-based steelmakers as such output only accounts
for around 10% of the country's total production.
($1 = 6.9225 Chinese yuan)
(Reporting by Amy Lv and Dominique Patton; Editing by Alison
Williams and Bernadette Baum)
