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China’s benchmark iron ore futures rose on Friday to log its fourth straight week of gains, while steel rebar and hot-rolled coil advanced on higher downstream consumption.
Capacity utilisation rates at 247 blast furnaces in China rose to 92.28% this week, the highest since mid-December, data from Mysteel consultancy showed, despite environmental restrictions in Hebei curbing some production.
The most actively traded iron ore futures contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange, for May delivery, ended up 1.7% at 1,151 yuan ($177.87) per tonne. It rose 3.0% this week and marked the biggest monthly gain since July 2020.
Spot prices of iron ore with 62% iron content for delivery to China SH-CCN-IRNOR62 rose by $1 to $174.5 a tonne on Thursday, according to SteelHome consultancy.
Steel products on the Shanghai Futures Exchange also gained as downstream consumption jumped.
Construction steel rebar inched up 0.1% to 4,677 yuan a tonne and hot-rolled coil futures increased 0.3% to 4,887 yuan per tonne at close.
The contracts ended the month up 9.6% and 11.3%, respectively.
FUNDAMENTALS
* Dalian coking coal fell 2.5% to 1,474 yuan a tonne.
* Coke futures declined 3.0% to 2,532 yuan per tonne.
* Shanghai stainless steel, for April delivery, slid 2.6% to 15,005 yuan a tonne.
* China’s factory activity likely grew at a slightly slower rate in February as factories closed for the Lunar New Year holiday, a Reuters poll showed, although growth is expected to remain firm, buoyed by an early resumption of production.
* Brazil’s Vale SA logged $4.9 billion in provisions related to the Brumadinho dam disaster in quarterly earnings, but its ferrous metal division turned in a strong performance and the miner was upbeat about the outlook for key products.
* Global crude steel production rose 4.8% in January from a year earlier to 163 million tonnes, World Steel Association data showed on Thursday.