China's top five provinces in pig iron production – Hebei, Jiangsu, Shandong, Liaoning and Shanxi – produced 35.55 million tonnes of the steelmaking material in November, falling 6.7% from the previous month and accounting for 54.8% of the country's total, official data showed.

 

The five provinces produced a total 460 million tonnes of pig iron during the first eleven months this year, contributing to 57.2% of China's total, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics.

 

 

China's output of pig iron dropped 4.8% year on year and 6.3% month on month to 64.84 million tonnes in November. Hebei, Jiangsu, Shandong, Liaoning and Shanxi respectively contributed 20.5%, 10.5%, 9.2%, 8.6% and 6% of the total. Production of pig iron in Hebei was nearly double that of Jiangsu.

 

Pig iron output in the above five provinces all registered month-on-month declines in November, with Jiangsu, Shandong and Liaoning shifting to the downtrend. Shanxi continued to decline for the fourth consecutive month, while Hebei declined for the fifth month.

 

The top five provinces produced 13.31 million (-5.8% MoM), 6.81 million (-10.1% MoM), 5.94 million (-3.2% MoM), 5.59 million (-3.7% MoM) and 3.91 million tonnes (-12.8% MoM) of pig iron respectively in November.

 

In November, around 70% of provinces and regions registered month-on-month declines in pig iron production. Hebei saw the largest reduction of 0.82 million tonnes and Chongqing posted the biggest decline rate of 33.6%.

 

Nine out of 28 provinces saw month-on-month increases, with the largest increment in Jilin at 80,000 tonnes and the steepest growth rate in Qinghai at 54.9%.

 

Except the top five provinces, no province produced over 3 million tonnes of pig iron in November. Guangxi, ranking sixth, produced 2.83 million tonnes in the month.

 

The top five pig iron provinces were also the top five in crude steel output in November, yet Liaoning surpassed Shandong and grabbed the third-place. Their crude steel production totaled 38.1 million tonnes, a 5.9% fall on the month, accounting for 50.1% of China's total. During the first eleven months, the crude steel production of these provinces amounted to 510 million tonnes, 53.4% of the total.

 

China's crude steel output last month came in at 76.1 million tonnes, up 0.4% year on year yet down 3.8% month on month.

 

In November, crude steel production in Hebei remained above 10 million tonnes but registered a fifth-sequential decline, while that in Jiangsu further retreated to less than 9 million tonnes. In Shandong and Liaoning, the output also turned to decline below 6 million tonnes and that in Shanxi was over 4 million tonnes, yet still dropping for the fourth consecutive month. The rest provinces and regions generally had below 4 million tonnes of production.

 

 

All these five provinces posted negative month-on-month changes. Hebei ranked first with crude steel production of 14.05 million tonnes in November, down 6.6% month on month, a share of 18.5% of China's total, followed by Jiangsu's 8.37 million tonnes (11%, -6% MoM), Liaoning's 5.81 million tonnes (7.6%, -4.8% MoM), Shandong's 5.72 million tonnes (7.5%, -.6% MoM) and Shanxi's 4.14 million tonnes (5.4%, -1.9% MoM).

 

About 70% of provinces saw crude steel production in November decline month on month. Hebei saw the largest reduction of 0.99 million tonnes, while Henan registered the biggest decline rate of 28.9%.

 

Among the provinces that posted positive month-on-month growths, Henan saw the largest increment of 377,000 tonnes and Qinghai had the steepest increase of 55.6%.