BEIJING (Reuters) -China's crude steel output in November fell 4.3% from October, official data showed on Monday, dampened by tighter margins and seasonally weakening downstream steel consumption.
The world's largest steel manufacturer produced 78.4 million metric tons of crude steel last month, down from 81.88 million tons in October, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed.
That suggested average daily output of about 2.61 million tons, compared with 2.64 million tons in October and 2.54 million tons in November 2023, according to Reuters calculations based on the data.
"The month-on-month fall in output in November is mainly because steel margins had been squeezed by diminishing seasonal demand and resilient iron ore prices," said Ge Xin, deputy director at consultancy Lange Steel.
Pointing to the tighter margins, steel rebar prices slipped 2.1% in November, while iron ore prices gained 3.1% over the same period, LSEG data showed.
About half of China's steel mills were operating at a profit by the end of November, down from about two-thirds in late October, data from consultancy Mysteel showed.
"Steel consumption has contracted since the middle of November, and this is especially the case in the northern region where cold weather disrupted construction activities," Ge said.
The output last month was up 2.5% from a year earlier, the data showed.
December output is expected to fall further from November's levels as some mills have started annual maintenance, analysts said. However, they forecast December's output would be higher compared with December 2023.
Output in the first 11 months of 2024 slipped 2.7% on the year to 929.19 million tons, the bureau said.
Ge expected China's total crude steel output in 2024 to decline by around 2% from 2023.
(Reporting by Amy Lv and Mei Mei Chu; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
By Amy Lv and Mei Mei Chu
