China’s finished steel production up 6.6% to 2.2 mln tpd in late January

Member mills of the China Iron & Steel Association (Cisa) raised their finished steel production from January 21-31, from the preceding 10 days, according to data published by the association on Wednesday February 3.

January 21-31 output
Crude steel: 2.18 million tonnes per day, down 1.87%
Finished steel: 2.20 million tpd, up 6.60%
Hot metal: 1.92 million tpd, down 2.07%

Mills’ finished steel inventories
13.76 million tonnes, down 280,400 million tonnes (2%)

Spot market inventories

Hot-rolled coil: 1.41 million tonnes, up 1.4%
Cold-rolled coil: 1.02 million tonnes, up 1%
Plate: 1.01 million tonnes, up 6.3%
Wire rod: 1.73 million tonnes, up 26.3%
Rebar: 4.56 million tonnes, up 25.6%
Total (all five major products): 9.73 million tonnes, up 1.38 million tonnes or 16.5%

Cisa’s output data for the preceding 10 days can be found here.

What to read next
Prices for tungsten hexafluoride (WF6), a specialty gas used in advanced semiconductor manufacturing and increasingly linked to AI-driven chip demand, have surged in recent months amid tightening supply and growing expectations for next-generation memory production.
Chinese molybdenum-related stocks have rallied in recent months on the heels of a surge in the semiconductor sector driven by the AI boom, given the transition from tungsten to molybdenum in the manufacturing of next-generation memory chips, sources told Fastmarkets.
China’s direct flat steel trade with the EU was already thin, at just 3-5% of total exports, or around 2 million tonnes a year, thanks to years of anti-dumping and countervailing duties. That leaves little room for the bloc’s newly tightened import quotas to inflict much additional direct damage, sources told Fastmarkets.
Fastmarkets will publish the following eight China containerboard price assessments on Thursday December 31, 2026 at 2pm Beijing time due to the New Year’s Day holiday on Friday January 1, 2027.
The tungsten market was changing, Fastmarkets heard in the week to Wednesday June 24, and in a trading environment that was becoming less globalized and more fragmented, alongside trade tensions between the US and China in particular, the relationship between prices within China and outside the country has shifted.
The geopolitics-led diversification of critical minerals supply chains is broadly viewed as a tailwind to the lithium market, senior executives said during the Executive Keynote Panel at Fastmarkets’ Global Lithium, Battery and Critical Materials in Las Vegas on Tuesday June 23.