Will Steel Production Soar in April? Will it Fall in May?

In April 2020, due to the fact that the domestic epidemic situation was basically controlled, the overall progress of resumption of production in the steel industry was accelerated, and the downstream demand was significantly restored, making steel mills' profits rebound and production enthusiasm increased, so crude steel output appeared to rebound rapidly. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, in April 2020, crude steel output was 85.03 million tons, an increase of 7.7% month-on-month, and an increase of 0.2% year-on-year; pig iron output was 72.02 million tons, an increase of 7.5% month-on-month, and a year-on-year decrease of 1.2%; steel production was 107.01 million tons , An increase of 8.2% month-on-month and 3.6% year-on-year.

In April, the national average daily output of crude steel was 2.834 million tons, an increase of 11.2% month-on-month, the same as the same period last year; the average daily output of pig iron was 2.401 million tons, an increase of 11.2% month-on-month, and an increase of 3.1%; the average daily output of steel was 3.567 million tons, an increase of 11.9 month-on-month. %, A year-on-year increase of 4.86%.

Among them, in April, the key statistics of daily production of crude steel of iron and steel enterprises were 1.98979 million tons, an increase of 6.94% month-on-month, and a year-on-year decrease of 3.29%; daily production of pig iron was 1.8056 million tons, an increase of 4.86% month-on-month, and a year-on-year decrease of 2.01%; 7.06%, a year-on-year decrease of 0.43%.

From the perspective of monthly daily production, crude steel daily output in the first quarter showed a continuous decline, only in January-February crude steel daily output was higher than the same period last year, March crude steel daily output was lower than the same period last year, and crude steel daily output in April climbed to At the same time level, this indicates that the domestic epidemic has affected the iron and steel enterprises, and the production of the steel mills has returned to the normal level in previous years. At the same time, the data also shows that the daily production level of pig iron increased significantly in April, which indicates that the production rhythm of domestic long-term steel companies has begun to accelerate. At the same time, the daily production level of steel in April also increased rapidly, which indicates that domestic short-process steel companies still have strong momentum to resume production.

In addition, due to the recent strong performance of steel prices, the enthusiasm of steel mills for production is more sufficient, and the counter-cyclical adjustments continue to increase, and downstream demand for steel is continuously released. These factors will keep steel production in May steadily rebounding. According to estimates by the Lange Steel Research Center, the national crude steel daily output will remain at a level of more than 2.85 million tons in May, and the average crude steel output of key large and medium-sized steel companies will remain at a level of more than 2 million tons.