Despite the plethora of cheap semi-finished and finished steel exports coming out of China last year, MBR estimates that Taiwanese basic oxygen furnace (BOF) steel production held up relatively well. We estimate that Dragon Steel's 1.2Mtpy electric arc furnace (EAF) suffered the brunt of the lack of "competitiveness" from the wave of Chinese steel exports, due to its relatively high scrap costs and low steel prices. The country's only two integrated steel producers, China Steel Corporation (9.9Mtpy) and its wholly owned subsidiary Dragon Steel (5Mtpy), increased hot metal production 1.1% year-on-year to 13.3Mt from January to November 2015; resulting in an average capacity utilisation rate of 89.2%. That said, domestic blast furnace iron output declined 26% year-on-year in November, as China Steel announced it would scale back output in response to "challenging market conditions".
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