*
April crude steel output down 1.5% y/y to 92.64 mln tonnes
*
Daily average little changed y/y and m/m
*
January-April output up 4.1% y/y to 354.39 mln tonnes
(Adds analyst comment in paragraph 4, graphics)
By Amy Lv
BEIJING, May 16 (Reuters) - China's crude steel output
in April fell 3.2% from a month earlier and was down 1.5% from a
year earlier, the statistics bureau said on Tuesday, as steel
mills cut their production amid a slump in margins.
The world's largest steel producer manufactured 92.64
million tonnes of the metal last month, data from the National
Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed.
The April volume compares with 95.73 million tonnes produced
in March and 92.78 million tonnes in the same month in 2022,
according to NBS data.
"We are a little surprised at seeing a year-on-year decline,
though the month-on-month fall is in line with our
expectations," said Pei Hao, a Shanghai-based senior analyst at
international brokerage firm FIS.
The average daily steel output in April was approximately
3.09 million tonnes, little changed from that in March and
April 2022, according to Reuters calculations based on the NBS
data.
Only 26.41% of 247 steel mills surveyed by consultancy Mysteel said they were operating profitably at the end of April, down from 54.55% at the beginning of the month. The government-backed China Iron and Steel Association (CISA) urged domestic steelmakers to cut production following rapid price drops to help ensure a stable cash flow. This came after some steelmakers in northwest and northern China began maintenance work on blast furnaces after suffering losses, consultancy Mysteel and Shanghai Metals Market (SMM) said in reports. "The capacity utilization rate among the electric-arc furnace-based steelmakers exhibited evident falls in April," said Pei.
"Meanwhile, the hot metal output also showed month-on-month
declines due to production restrictions among some mills in the
second half of the month," he added.
Hot metal is a blast furnace product and output is often
used to gauge iron ore demand.
China churned out 354.39 million tonnes of crude steel
over the first four months of this year, the highest for the
period since 2021, up 4.1% year-on-year, NBS data showed.
<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
China's daily crude steel output in April over 2018-2023 China's crude steel output in April China's crude steel output by month ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>
(Reporting by Amy Lv and Dominique Patton in Beijing; Editing
by Kim Coghill and Sonali Paul)
