FOCUS: Covid-19 could gear China toward more EAF-based steelmaking

The Covid-19 pandemic could nudge Chinese steelmakers toward using more electric-arc furnaces (EAF) to produce steel, market sources say.

This is especially due to the huge market uncertainty caused by the ongoing global economic crisis. EAF-based production could offer mills - most of which are still heavily reliant on blast furnaces (BFs) - the flexibility they need in such circumstances to reduce their operating.
"If steel demand changes sharply and suddenly in the future, steel mills will need to adjust their production accordingly. This is especially so if a second explosion of Covid-19 cases were to occur in China," an industry analyst in eastern China told Fastmarkets.
China was the first country to lift its lockdown imposed to contain the spread of Covid-19. Wuhan - the epicenter of the outbreak - is the first major city in the world to emerge from the health crisis.

But the virus has continued to spread around the world. There are some 2.4 million confirmed cases and over 163,000 deaths so far, according to the World Health...

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