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* Average steel production plunged from 5% of November to 2.46 million T
* But overall, production in 2018 hit a record – the statistics bureau
* Profit margins decreased towards the end of the year due to oversupply (Adds a chart)
BEIJING, Jan. 21 (Reuters) – According to Reuters calculations based on official data, China's average daily steel output reached its lowest level in December since March.
Total production fell to 76.12 million tonnes last month from 77.62 million tonnes in November, but increased 8.2% from December 2017, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics released on Monday.
This means that average daily steel production fell 5% from the previous month to 2.46 million tonnes, the lowest level since March's 2.39 million tonnes, according to calculations. from Reuters.
The world's largest steel producer has produced a record 928.26 million tons of crude steel in 2018, according to data, up 6.6% from 2017, supported by a sustained demand in the first three quarters of the year.
However, steel mill profits have fallen nearly 60 percent since November thanks to a stronger than expected supply after Beijing removed comprehensive measures to reduce industrial production during the winter.
The Ministry of the Environment is committed to more effective and targeted measures to combat pollution by 2019.
An official from the China Iron and Steel Association said last week that the country's steel industry would focus more on optimizing the capacity structure in 2019 than on the reduction of the overall capacity.
China currently has a steel production capacity of about 980 million tons.
A government consulting firm had predicted last month that steel production would decline to 900 million tonnes by 2019, dampened by cooling of demand in key downstream sectors such as real estate, oil and gas. Automobile and energy.
(Report by Muyu Xu and Dominique Patton, edited by Joseph Radford)
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