Morning Bites

🔗CISA mills daily crude steel production in late-May was 2.00mnt, down 4.3% from the previous ten days, and 4.1% lower YoY. Per CISA data, local production has declined 5.9% YTD (through 31 May). Meanwhile, local steel inventories dropped 15.7% over the period, but were 3.5% higher YoY

Given the ongoing weakness in the global steel market, we believe that Beijing will continue to tighten supply on a gradual basis. Even though the current five-year plan lacks explicit targets for capacity cuts, China might also introduce additional strict supply-control measures, similar to the 2016-17 reform (when >100mnt steelmaking capacities were removed)

For instance, China has already released a tougher steel capacity swap plan to curb oversupply. Per a Ministry of Industry and Information Technology statement, at least 1.5t of old steel capacity now needs to be decommissioned to build ⁠every 1.0t of new capacity nationwide

#steel