For Australia, one of the most important bits of data is monthly crude steel output (as well as monthly iron ore imports) and the news for November was solid, but with more concern about the emerging weakness as production volumes slow.
Data on Tuesday from China’s National Bureau of Statistics showed rude steel production was again solid but the weakness from mid-year continued last month, helping explain the way iron ore import volumes have been easing.
Analysts are wondering if the current steel boom has been pricked and demand is easing, which in turn is seeing a slide in iron ore demand (though the prices do not tell that story, yet) and crude steel output.
But China’s crude steel production remains on track to top the billion tonne mark for the second year in a row in 2020.
In the 11 months to November, crude steel output rose 5.5% to 961 million and should end the year around 1.048 billion tonnes, an all-time high after the previous high of 998.3 billion in 2019.
But not prices which last Friday topped $US160 a tonne for the first time in 9 years and then fell on Monday after Chinese steel mills moaned about the rise and there were rumours of an ‘investigation’ by the Chinese government – which is a laughable thought.
The price of 62% Fe fines delivered to northern China rose 70 cents on Tuesday to a still very high $US157.07 a tonne.
While China’s crude steel, hot metal and finished steel output continued to grow on a year-on-year in November, it again fell month on month and is now well below the all-time high of 92.845 million tonnes in August of this year.
Crude steel production last month totalled 87.66 million tonnes, up 8% from November, 2019 down 4.9% from October’s 92.2 million tonnes and 5.5% under the all-time peak in August.
Hot metal output was 72.01 million tonnes, up 4.7% year on year, down 5.5% month on month
Finished steel: 117.34 million tonnes, up 10.8% from a year earlier (includes production from Electric furnaces and other sources).
November saw China’s imports of iron ore top the billion-tonne mark with one month to go in the year and in doing so also topped 2019’s full-year total.
Customers figures showed that imports for the 11 months to November totalled 1.073 billion tonnes, beating full-year imports of 1.06 billion tonnes in 2019,
Imports totalled 98.15 million tonnes last month, compared with 106.74 million tonnes of imports in October, according to data released by the General Administration of Customs.
That was up 8.3% from November 2019 but down 8.1% from October and well under the all time high of 112.7 million tonnes in July.
