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China April crude steel output surprises with a month-to-month fall

China's crude steel output in April fell 2.6% from the previous month and dropped 7.2% from the previous year, stats bureau data showed on Friday, missing out on expectations.

Many market individuals had forecast a regular monthly increase, pointing out improved downstream demand and profitability that motivated steelmakers to increase production last month.

China, the world's biggest steel manufacturer, manufactured 85.94 million metric tons of crude steel last month, information from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed.

That represents a typical everyday output of 2.86 million loads, compared with 2.85 million loads in March and 3.09 million lots in April 2023.

The month-to-month change is truly out of our expectation, said Pei Hao, a Shanghai-based expert at worldwide brokerage Freight Investor Provider (FIS).

It's almost till the second half of April that steelmakers increase production due to the fact that downstream need healing came behind anticipated this spring, which is different from last year when a production ramp-up started in March, and that added to a year-on-year fall in output, Pei said.

April is a much shorter month than March by one day, which some analysts said could discuss the lower monthly output.

In the very first four months of 2024, China produced 343.67 million lots of unrefined steel, down 3% year on year.

Output in May will likely get thanks to more production resumptions among mills, driven by resistant need and enhancing consumption prospects, analysts stated.

Considered that overall output in the very first four months is already seeing an obvious decline, we anticipate this year's annual output will be no higher than the 2023 level even without an across the country government-mandated production constraint, said Chu Xinli, a. Shanghai-based expert at China Futures.

China's state planner, which revealed in early April that. it would continue to manage unrefined steel output in 2024, has yet. to unveil information on the timing and scale of production limits.

(source: Reuters)