May crude steel output at 92.27 mln T vs 85.03 mln T in April
* Average daily output at 2.98 mln T vs 2.83 mln T a month earlier
* May output is highest in records published for any single month (Adds details)
BEIJING, June 15 (Reuters) – China’s crude steel output jumped 8.5% from a month earlier in May, hitting the highest ever in records published for single-month production, lifted by a construction boom amid a Beijing infrastructure development push and a recovery in manufacturing.
The world’s largest steel producer made 92.27 million tonnes of crude steel last month, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Monday, up from 85.03 million tonnes in April and 4.2% higher than in May 2019.
The May number was the highest for any single month in NBS records. China typically publishes one combined number in data for January and February each year without breaking out details of each month.
Average daily output of the metal stood at 2.98 million tonnes in May compared with 2.83 million tonnes in April, according to Reuters calculations based on the official data, also a record level.
For the first five months of the year, China produced 411.75 million tonnes of crude steel, up 1.9% from the same period in 2019, the NBS data showed.
The surge in production came amid continuously falling inventories and firm demand from infrastructure projects and a resilient property market, with the world’s second-biggest economy back in business after emerging from coronavirus lockdown curbs.
“Developers are ramping up on better house sales, looser credit and marginal relaxation of housing restrictions on the local governments’ level,” Zhilu Wang from Wood Mackenzie said before the data was released, adding that auto and machinery sectors are also warming up.
Capacity utilisation rates at blast furnaces in 247 mills across China surged to 91.4% as of May 29, compared with 81.7% at end-April, data compiled by consultancy Mysteel showed.
Meanwhile, growth of raw materials’ added value had accelerated to 5.5% in May from 3.5% a month earlier, thanks to increasing infrastructure projects, the NBS said. (Reporting by Min Zhang and Tom Daly in Beijing; Additional reporting by Enrico Dela Cruz in Manila; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Kenneth Maxwell)