Over January-February this year, China’s total output for raw coal for all uses decreased by 4.2% on year to 705.27 million tonnes, while the country’s coke output increased by 2.1% on year to about 80.4 million tonnes, according to the latest release from China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on March 18.
China prefers to combine January output numbers with February’s as the Chinese New Year holiday usually falls in either of the two months, Mysteel Global notes.
On a daily basis, the NBS data showed that China’s daily raw coal production over January-February fell by 5.5% on year to 11.75 million tonnes/day, It was also below last December’s average of 13.36 million t/d.
The decrease in coal production during this year’s first two months reflected the fact that many coal mines were being subjected to local government safety inspections in a bid to prevent mine accidents, which curbed their coal production somewhat, as reported.
Meanwhile, the 2.1% increase in coke output during January-February occurred mainly because domestic coke makers chose to keep their coke production steady at that time, Mysteel data show. Producers of metallurgical coke expected steelmakers to show some keenness for securing coke products ahead of the weeklong Chinese New Year holidays which fell in early February this year.
In fact, many Chinese steelmakers maintained their production at a relatively high level over January-February, which prompted them to restock sufficient tonnage of feed coke for their production, Mysteel Global noted.
For example, China’s daily crude steel output during the first two months averaged 2.8 million t/d, much higher than the average of 2.18 million t/d recorded in December last year, the NBS data indicates.
Written by Winnie Han
Source: Mysteel
