China’s April crude steel output jumps 27% to record

China’s April crude steel output jumps 27% to record. Crude steel output in China, the world’s biggest producer, rose 27 percent to a record in April, indicating that demand from makers of cars and appliances is continuing to rise. Production jumped to 55.4 million metric tons last month from a year ago, the National Bureau of Statistics said today in Beijing. That’s 0.7 percent higher than the 55 million tons made in March, according to data on the Bloomberg. Baoshan Iron & Steel Co., China’s biggest publicly traded mill, last month said first-half profit may jump 6-fold to 10- fold because of higher automotive steel demand and prices. Benchmark steel prices reached an 18-month high in April. “The April output is stunning,” said Hu Yanping, an analyst at UC361.com. “So long as there is profit to be made, steelmakers will do their utmost to produce. The huge steel production will weigh on prices, although prices won’t fall too much because of the raw material costs.” Rising production by Chinese steelmakers have spurred competition for the purchases of iron ore, a raw material, and driven up contract prices by 90 percent. Annualized, the April steel production would translate into 665 million tons of output for 2010, or a 17 percent jump from the 568 million tons last year. Steel inventories held by traders in China, the largest consumer of the metal, dropped to 9.77 million tons in mid-April from 10.7 million tons a month ago, the China Iron & Steel Association said today in a statement on its website.